5i'  ^-^^m^c:^ 


(o    S.'p 


^^a^^vot  *»'"'*»' ^..,,^^ 


PRINCETON,  N.  J. 


BL  80  .M39  1893  I 

Matheson,  George,  1842-1906.. 
The  distinctive  messages  of  ^^ 
the  old  religions         ^ 


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THE 


DISTINCTIVE   MESSAGES   OF   THE 
OLD    RELIGIONS 


THE 


DISTINCTIVE  MESSAGES  Of  THE 
OLD  RELIGIONS 


BY    THE 

EEV.   GEOEGE    MATHESON 

M.A.,    D.D.,    F.R.S.E. 
MINISTER  OF   THE   PARISH   OF  ST  EEEXARD's,    EDINBURGH 


NEW    YORK 
ANSON    D.    F.    RANDOLPH    AND    CO. 

EDINBURGH    AND    LONDON 

WILLIAM    BLACKWOOD    AND    SONS 

MDCCCXCIII 


PREFACE. 


I  NEED  not  say  that  my  design  in  this  little  book 
is  not  to  describe  the  old  religions,  but  to  photo- 
graph their  spirit.  To  describe  any  religion  would 
require  a  volume  twice  the  size  of  the  present. 
But  a  photograph  must  be  instantaneous  or  abor- 
tive. It  is  a  generalised  result ;  it  only  dates  from 
the  time  when  all  the  materials  have  been  arranged 
in  order.  It  does  not  involve  work,  it  presupposes 
work.  When  you  have  completed  the  perusal  of 
some  elaborate  encyclopaedic  article  descriptive  of 
a  religious  faith,  the  question  which  rises  in  the 
mind  is  this.  Such  being  the  facts,  what  then ;  what 
is  its  mental  contribution  to  the  life  of  the  world  ? 
In  our  days  this  question  has  been  dwarfed  by 
another — the  problem  of  development.  In  intel- 
lectual circles  the  whole  inquiry  has  been  how  any 
one  faith  has  passed  into  a  different  faith.      ]N"ow, 


vi  Preface. 

I  am  a  firm  believer  in  development,  and  thoroughly 
alive  to  its  value.  But  before  a  thing  can  fass  it 
must  he.  It  must  originally  have  had  a  worth  for 
itself  alone  and  not  for  another.  No  object,  no 
ideal,  could  have  exercised  for  centuries  a  sway 
over  thousands,  which  had  no  other  cause  than  the 
contemplation  of  that  final  link  by  which  it  was 
to  pass  away.  To  the  men  of  these  centuries  the 
power  lay  in  the  faith  itself — in  something  which 
was  not  only  potent  but  present.  This  I  have 
called  its  distinctive  message.  By  the  distinctive 
message  of  a  religion  I  mean,  not  an  enumeration  of 
its  various  points,  but  a  selection  of  the  one  point  in 
which  it  differs  from  all  others.  My  design  is  there- 
fore more  limited  than  that  of  some  volumes  of 
equal  size.  I  do  not  seek  the  permanent  elements 
in  religion  with  the  Bishop  of  Eipon,  nor  the  uncon- 
scious Christianity  of  Paganism  with  F.  D.  IMaurice, 
nor  the  moral  ideal  of  the  nations  with  Miss  Julia 
Wedgwood.  I  seek  only  to  emphasise  the  dividing 
lines  which  constitute  the  boundary  between  each 
religion  and  all  beside.  In  the  concluding  chapter 
I  have  tried  to  reunite  these  lines  by  finding  a 
place  for  each  in  some  part  of  the  Christian  mes- 
sage. I  have  given  a  sufficient  number  of  references 
for  a  book  which  is  not  meant  for  a  contribution  to 


Preface.  vii 

linguistic  research,  but  simply  as  a  mental  study. 
This  is  not  a  matter  in  which  the  linguist  has  any 
advantage  over  the  unprofessional,  pro^dded  only 
that  the  details,  so  far  as  they  are  known,  have 
become  common  property  and  are  sufficient  to 
warrant  a  conclusion.  It  is  a  doubt  on  this  last 
point  which  has  induced  me  to  omit  from  the 
present  generalisation  the  otherwise  interesting  re- 
ligions of  Assyria  and  Chaldea. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAP. 

I.   INTRODUCTION, 

II.    THE    COMMON   ELEMENT    IN    RELIGIONS, 

III.  THE   MESSAGE    OF    CHINA, 

IV.  THE    MESSAGE    OF   INDIA, 
V.    THE   SUBJECT    CONTINUED,      . 

YI.    THE    SUBJECT    COMPLETED,      . 

YII.    THE   MESSAGE    OF    PERSIA,      . 

YIII.    CONTINUATION, 

IX.    THE    MESSAGE    OF   GREECE,     . 

X.    THE    MESSAGE    OF    ROME, 

XI.    THE   SUBJECT    CONTINUED,      . 

XII.    THE   MESSAGE    OF   THE   TEUTON, 

XIII.    THE    MESSAGE    OF   EGYRT, 

XIY.    THE    MESSAGE    OF   JUDEA, 

XV.    THE    SUBJECT    CONTINUED,       . 

XYI.    CONCLUSION  :    CHRISTIA^"ITY    AND    THE    I^IESSAGES 

OF    THE    PAST, 


PAGE 
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327 


THE  DISTINCTIVE  MESSAGES  OF 
THE   OLD  RELIGIONS. 


C  H  A  P  T  E  E     I. 


IXTPvODUCTIOX. 


There  are  two  questions  which  are  often  confounded 
— What  is  the  nature  of  religion  ?  and,  What  is 
the  origin  of  religion  ?  We  frequently  hear  it  said 
that  religion  has  its  origin  in  certain  feelings  of  the 
mind.  We  are  told  sometimes  that  it  is  the  product 
of  fear,  sometimes  that  it  is  the  fruit  of  superstition, 
sometimes  that  it  originates  in  a  sense  of  absolute 
dependence.  How^ever  true  such  statements  may  be, 
they  can  in  no  case  reach  the  root  of  the  matter. 
They  may  tell  us  what  religion  is ;  they  cannot  tell 
us  whence  religion  comes.  If  we  should  succeed 
in  reducing  the  religious  faculty  to  an  experience 
of  fear,  or  a  feeling  of  primitive  superstition,  or  a 
sense   of   absolute    dependence,  we   sliall   not   have 

A 


2  Messages  of  the  Old  Beligions. 

gained  one  step  in  the  solution  of  the  great  problem, 
whence  and  how.  What  we  want  to  know  is,  how 
came  this  fear,  whence  arose  this  superstition,  what 
wakened  this  sense  of  dependence  ?  There  is  no 
reason  why  primitive  man  should  have  been  more 
subject  to  these  influences  than  cultured  man  ;  there 
is,  a  jJTiori,  every  reason  to  the  contrary.  The  ex- 
perience of  fear  increases  in  proportion  to  the 
mind's  development.  The  feeling  of  superstition, 
or  presentiment  of  a  violated  law,  demands  that 
already  in  the  heart  of  the  man  there  should  exist 
some  knowledge  of  law.  The  sense  of  dependence 
is  not  a  primitive  instinct,  but  only  reaches  its 
flower  when  primitive  instincts  have  been  super- 
seded. How  comes  it  that  these  states  of  mind, 
which  we  should  naturally  expect  to  arise  in  the 
later  stages  of  life,  have  found  their  crowning  mani- 
festation on  the  very  threshold  of  human  existence  ? 
There  is  a  question  which  I  have  often  asked 
myself  and  which  leads  directly  into  the  heart  of 
this  subject,  AVliat  is  the  reason  that  in  the  primi- 
tive stages  of  life  the  individual  man  does  not 
begin  by  deifying  himself?  He  possesses  a  wonder- 
ful power  of  canonisation.  There  is  scarcely  an 
object  in  heaven  or  earth  or  the  waters  under  the 
earth  which  he  does  not  make  divine.  He  deifies 
the  stars ;  he  deifies  the  hills ;  he  deifies  the  rivers ; 
he  deifies  even  a  block  of  wood  and  a  piece  of  rag. 
His   bestowal    of   divine    honours   is    by   no  means 


Introduction.  3 

regulated  by  the  grandeur  of  the  object.  On  the 
contrary,  with  the  full  perception  of  the  visible 
universe,  he  begins  by  selecting  for  worship  pre- 
cisely those  things  which  are  not  fitted  to  attract 
the  eye,  which,  when  they  do  attract  the  eye,  are 
conspicuous  by  their  want  of  beauty.  These  are 
facts  patent  and  undeniable,  but  they  are  none  the 
less  suggestive,  and  they  do  not  seem  to  me  to 
have  received  adequate  attention.  For,  the  point 
to  be  considered  is,  that  amidst  this  almost  universal 
canonisation  of  the  universe  there  is  one  object 
which  the  primitive  man  does  not  canonise — his 
own  souL  He  canonises  the  souls  of  others;  he 
worships  the  spirits  of  his  ancestors ;  but  it  never 
occurs  to  him  to  bow  his  head  in  reverence  to  that 
mysterious  life  which  dwells  within  his  own  breast. 
Why  is  this  ?  The  life  within  him  is  tlie  nearest 
object  to  him  in  all  the  universe,  the  only  object 
in  all  the  universe  of  which  he  has  any  real  know- 
ledge. One  would  naturally  have  expected  that 
with  the  dawn  of  the  tendency  to  worship,  the 
earliest  object  of  his  adoration  would  have  been 
precisely  that  mysterious  life  which  manifested  it- 
self in  contact  with  all  other  things,  and  without 
whose  contact  no  other  thing  could  be  perceived. 
Why  is  it  that  the  primitive  man  turns  away  from 
that  which  is  nearest  to  him  and  bestows  the  gift 
of  divinity  originally  upon  those  objects  which  are 
seemingly  the  most  alien  to  his  own  nature — upon 


4  Messages  of  the  Old  Pidigions. 

a  petty  piece  of  timber  wliich  his  foot  has  accident- 
ally struck,  or  a  miserable  bit  of  rag  which  has  been 
lifted  by  the  passing  wind  ? 

Now  I  believe  it  is  possible  to  arrive  at  a  solution 
of  this  question.  If  we  want  to  know  why  the 
primitive  man  deifies  everything  but  his  own  in- 
dividual soul,  we  have  only  to  ask  whether  he  can 
discover  in  his  own  individual  soul  any  imperfection 
which  he  cannot  find  in  the  objects  around  him. 
Is  there  any  respect  in  which  the  things  of  sur- 
rounding nature  seem  to  have  an  advantage  over 
this  indi^■iduul  life  which  beats  within  him  ?  There 
is,  I  think,  one.  When  the  primitive  man  looks 
within  himself,  he  becomes  conscious  of  something 
of  which  he  is  not  conscious  when  he  looks  at  any 
thing  outside  of  him ;  he  becomes  aware  of  a  limit 
to  existence.  In  casting  back  his  individual  memory 
he  is  almost  immediately  arrested  by  a  blank.  He 
can  retrace  his  steps  some  forty,  fifty,  or  sixty  years, 
and  then  he  is  stopped  by  a  stone  wall.  There  is 
a  point  beyond  which  he  cannot  go  and  at  the 
back  of  which  there  is  oblivion.  In  the  recognition 
of  that  point  and  the  oblivion  beyond  it  the  prim- 
itive man  arrives  for  the  first  time  at  the  definite 
conception  of  a  beginning.  He  f(;els  that  there  was 
a  time  when  he  was  not,  and  that  the  existence  of 
which  he  is  now  conscious  has  had  a  distinct  origin. 
There  must  have  been  something-  to  cause  that  ori- 
gin.     Two   facts    lie  before  liim  —  the  fact  that  he 


Introduction.  '  5 

is  now  an  individual  being,  and  the  fact  that  a  few 
years  ago  he  was  individually  nothing.  Even  to 
his  primitive  consciousness  it  is  already  clear  that 
two  such  contrary  states  cannot  have  followed  one 
another  without  the  intervention  of  a  third  agency. 
If  yesterday  he  was  nothing  and  if  to-day  he  is 
something^,  there  must  have  intervened  some  mediat- 
ing  power  to  effect  the  transformation  from  the  one 
state  into  the  other.  It  is  in  the  felt  necessity  for 
such  a  mediating  power  that  the  primitive  man 
aw^akens  for  the  first  time  to  the  conception  of  a 
cause  in  the  universe. 

It  will  he  seen  that  the  view  I  have  here  taken 
is  essentially  different  from  the  view  taken  by 
Paley.  Paley,  as  is  well  known,  regards  the  prim- 
itive man  as  ariivin<^  at  his  notion  of  a  universal 
cause  by  an  observation  of  the  objects  of  nature. 
He  tells  us  that,  if  a  savage  found  a  watch,  his  im- 
mediate conclusion  would  be  that  there  must  have 
been  a  watchmaker.  He  intends  to  teach  by  an- 
alogy tliat,  when  the  primitive  man  first  beheld  the 
mechanism  of  the  universe,  he  would  come  at  once 
to  the  inference  that  it  must  have  had  a  creator. 
Now,  of  course  we  all  understand  tliat  whenever  an 
object  is  beheld  as  a  piece  of  mechanism,  it  must 
at  the  same  moment  be  beheld  as  requiring  a  maker. 
But  the  question  is,  Would  either  the  watch  or  the 
universe  or  any  part  of  the  universe  suggest  to  the 
primitive  man  the  conception  of  a  piece  of  median- 


6  Messages  of  the  Old  Religions. 

ism  ?  I  believe  that  it  would  not.  I  believe  that 
the  primitive  man  would  look  upon  all  objects  in 
movement  in  the  same  manner  as  a  child  looks 
upon  all  objects  in  movement.  A  child's  delight 
in  lookino-  at  a  steam-boat  lies  precisely  in  the  fact 
that  to  the  child  the  steamboat  is  not  a  piece  of 
mechanism,  but  an  independent  and  self-acting 
agent,  moved  by  its  own  power  and  impelled  by  its 
ow^n  will.  A  man  has  no  such  joy  in  the  percep- 
tion, just  because  a  man  has  arrived  at  the  notion 
that  the  appearance  of  self-agency  is  a  delusion. 
The  primitive  man's  first  sight  of  nature  is  a  sight 
which  awakens  wonder;  but  why  does  it  awaken 
wonder  ?  It  is  precisely  because  he  seems  to  find 
in  the  universe  something  which  he  has  found  to 
be  lacking  in  himself — i.e.,  a  principle  of  self-origina- 
tion. He  has  arrived  already  at  the  conviction  that 
he  himself  is  not  independent.  He  has  reached 
that  conviction  by  the  blank  in  his  own  memory. 
He  has  found  that  his  individual  life  has  come 
into  existence  at  a  very  recent  date,  and  that  there- 
fore it  must  be  dependent  for  its  being  on  the  ex- 
istence of  some  other  thing.  What  is  that  other 
thing  ?  Where  shall  he  seek  it  ?  Where  can  he 
seek  it  more  naturally  than  in  the  objects  which 
strike  his  eye  ?  These  objects  arrest  him  in  the 
first  instance  just  by  their  seeming  contrast  to  him- 
self. He  has  arrived  at  the  conviction  tliat  he  is 
a  poor,  passive  thing,  that  yesterday  he  was  nothing, 


Introduction.  7 

and  that  he  owes  the  breath  of  to-day  to  the  in- 
tervention of  some  other  agency.  When  he  opens 
his  eyes  upon  the  universe  he  sees  in  it  a  collec- 
tion of  objects  which  appear  to  be  more  privileged 
than  himself.  They  do  not  suggest  to  him  the 
notion  of  a  beginning.  They  seem  to  stand  out  in 
contrast  to  his  own  limited  existence.  He  finds 
that  they  have  been  already  on  the  field  before  his 
coming  and  independently  of  his  coming.  Ls  it  not 
natural  that,  instead  of  seekinsr  an  origin  for  them, 
he  should  seek  in  them  an  origin  for  himself  ?  Is 
it  not  to  be  expected  that,  instead  of  saying  "  who 
made  these  V  he  should  begin  by  saying  "  have  not 
these  made  me "  ?  He  has  come  to  the  universe 
not  in  search  of  a  cause  for  the  universe,  but  in 
search  of  a  cause  for  the  only  limit  he  has  hitherto 
found  in  nature — the  limit  to  his  own  existence : 
is  it  not  to  be  presumed  that  his  earliest  pursuit 
of  such  a  cause  will  be  amidst  those  objects  of 
the  material  world  which  are  not  subject  to  the 
limits  of  his  human  consciousness  ? 

I  do  not  think,  however,  we  are  entitled  to  sup- 
pose that  the  primitive  man  will  find  in  every  object 
of  the  universe  an  equally  probable  source  of  his 
own  origin.  There  is  a  fact  to  be  accounted  for 
in  the  history  of  religions — the  fact  that  the  earliest 
objects  of  worship  are  precisely  those  things  which 
are  not  in  themselves  the  crrandest.  We  should 
have  expected  that  the  primitive  man  would  have 


8  Mc66a(jC6  of  ilic  Old  lieliyiuns. 

fixed  his  first  reverence  on  tlie  most  exalted  things. 
We  should  have  thousrlit  that  he  would  have  looked 
up  to  the  sun  and  moon  and  stars  and  yielded  to 
them  his  earliest  trihute  of  praise.  On  the  contrary, 
his  gaze  is  riveted  to  that  which  is  not  above  his 
head  but  beneath  his  feet.  Instead  of  looking  up 
to  the  heavens  he  casts  his  eye  downward  upon  the 
earth.  He  takes  up  the  pebble  from  the  beach, 
or  the  stone  from  the  causeway,  or  the  piece  of 
cloth  that  has  been  wafted  to  his  feet  by  the  passing 
breeze,  and  he  invests  each  or  all  of  them  with  a 
magical  power.  Why  is  this  ?  It  is  clearly  an 
act  performed  in  the  fall  exercise  of  choice.  It 
is  not  as  if  his  senses  had  been  origiually  defective 
and  incapable  of  taking  in  distant  objects.  His 
perception  of  the  heavenly  bodies  is  as  distinct 
and  lucid  as  is  his  perception  of  the  pebble  or  the 
piece  of  cloth.  In  selecting  the  one  in  preference 
to  the  other  he  is  determined  by  some  principle  of 
judgment.  What  is  that  principle  of  judgment  ? 
Would  we  not  expect  that  the  sun  and  moon  would 
present  by  their  very  activity  more  likeness  to  his 
own  spiritual  nature  than  would  be  seen  in  the 
sluggish  inertness  of  the  stone  ?  Why,  then,  does 
he  pass  the  former  by  and  concentrate  upon  the 
latter  his  whole  attention  and  his  earliest  reverence  ? 
Now  I  take  the  reason  to  lie  precisely  in  the 
fact  that  seems  to  constitute  the  ground  for  an 
opposite   conclusion.     I   believe   that  the  primitive 


Introduction.  ,         9 

man  prefers  the  stone  to  the  star  just  because  he 
finds  in  the  stone  less  hkeness  to  himself  than  in 
the  star.  Eemember  the  conclusion  which  he  has 
reached  with  reference  to  his  own  spiritual  nature. 
He  has  found  it  to  be  a  poor,  perishable  thiug,  a 
thing  which  yesterday  had  no  existence  and  which 
is  dependent  for  its  present  life  upon  the  agency 
of  some  other  powder.  He  comes  to  the  sight  of 
nature  with  a  prejudice  against  himself.  If  he  seeks 
in  nature  for  a  cause  of  himself,  his  hope  to  find 
it  shall  certainly  rest  in  those  objects  which  seem 
to  him  most  foreign  to  his  own  being.  What  are 
those  objects  which  seem  most  foreign  to  his  own 
being  ?  Clearly  not  the  highest  but  the  lowest 
things  of  the  universe.  The  higher  objects  of  nature 
exhibit  to  the  eye  the  appearance  of  a  continual 
change.  The  glory  which  the  heavens  declare  is  a 
perpetually  shifting  glory.  The  sun  rises  and  sets, 
and  even  during  the  time  of  its  abiding  it  reveals 
stages  of  fluctuating  light.  The  stars  which  one 
moment  are  bright  are  in  .the  next  obscured  by 
a  passing  cloud.  In  these  appearances  the  primi- 
tive man  beholds  simply  a  repetition  of  his  own 
image,  and  it  is  his  own  image  which  he  wants  to 
avoid.  He  wants  to  find  some  object  in  nature 
which  shall  not  suggest  the  idea  of  a  beginning. 
The  higher  objects  of  nature  do  suggest  such  an 
idea.  They  seem  to  rise  and  fall  with  circum- 
stances.    They  convey  to  his  mind  the  same  sense 


1 0     .  Messages  of  the  Old  Religions. 

of  limitation  wliicli  he  has  experienced  i)i  contem- 
plating his  own  life.  Where  shall  lie  meet  with 
an  opposite  suggestion  ?  Clearly  he  ninst  seek  it 
in  the  things  of  the  lower  sphere.  When  he  turns 
from  the  star  to  the  stone  he  seems  to  find  all 
that  he  is  in  search  of.  Here  is  an  object  which, 
so  far  as  he  can  observe,  exhibits  no  fluctuation  and 
is  subject  to  no  structural  change.  It  does  not  rise 
or  fall  in  its  apparent  magnitude  ;  it  does  not  vary 
in  its  intensity  with  the  circling  of  the  hours.  It 
suoaests  to  the  mind  of  the  beholder  no  beginninf^, 
no  origination,  no  need  of  an  outward  cause.  Its 
very  inertness,  its  very  passiveness,  its  very  im- 
perviousness  to  surrounding  impressions,  invest  it 
with  a  semblance  of  eternity.  Upon  this,  therefore, 
the  eye  of  the  primitive  man  fastens.  It  seems  to 
him  that  he  has  found  here  the  object  best  suited 
to  meet  and  to  explain  his  own  sense  of  depen- 
dence. In  the  shifting  feelings  of  his  individual 
life  he  has  reached  the  conclusion  that  his  own 
being  is  short-lived.  Here  is  an  object  which  ex- 
hibits no  shifting,  which  to  all  appearance  is  the 
same  yesterday,  to-day,  and  for  ever.  Is  not  this 
the  eternal  something  which  lies  at  the  base  of 
the  other  fleeting  things  ?  Is  not  this  changeless 
substance  the  power  on  which  depends  the  human 
spirits  that  are  born  and  die,  and  the  physical 
stars  which  rise  and  set  ?  May  he  not  rest  here 
in    his    search    for    causes,    and    recognise    in    this 


Introduction.  1 1 

abiding    object    the    origin    and    the    source    of    all 
things  ? 

This  I  believe  to  be  tlie  explanation  of  the  nn- 
doubted  fact  that  the  earliest  manifestation  of  wor- 
ship is  what  is  called  Fetichism — the  worship  of  the 
lowest  things.  It  is  not  denied  that  the  primitive 
man  seeks  his  first  object  of  adoration  not  in  the 
stars  of  heaven  but  in  the  fragments  of  wood  and 
stone  which  he  picks  up  from  the  earth.  But  in  the 
view  which  I  here  have  taken,  I  have  departed 
essentially  from  the  reason  commonly  assigned  to 
this  pheiiomenou.  It  is  popularly  said  that  the 
primitive  man  reverences  the  lower  in  preference 
to  the  higher  objects  because  his  own  nature  is  as 
yet  too  lowly  to  be  aspiring.  He  is  supposed  to 
be  seekim,^  thiii!:js  on  a  level  with  himself.  To  mv 
mind,  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  exactly  the  reverse. 
I  believe  that  the  primitive  man  in  preferring  the 
stone  to  the  star  is  actuated  by  precisely  the  opposite 
desire.  Instead  of  being  attracted  to  the  stone  by 
its  level ness  with  his  own  nature,  he  is  drawn  to  it 
by  its  appearance  of  superiority  to  his  own  nature. 
He  sees  in  it  something  which  presents  the  aspect 
of  a  being  above  his  own.  He  finds  in  his  individ- 
ual life  the  evidence  of  fluctuation  and  change ;  he 
finds  in  this  inert  piece  of  matter  the  evidence  of 
steadfastness  and  immutability.  Its  very  inertness 
marks  it  out  to  his  mind  not  only  from  the  world 
within   but  from  the   liigher  portion   of   the   world 


1 2  }fLSsages  of  the  Old  Beligions. 

wilhuut.  Accordingly  lie  gives  it  the  pre-eiiiiiieiice. 
Jjut  ill  giving  it  the  pre-eminence  he  is  mnnifest- 
iug  not  the  absence  but  tlie  presence  of  aspiration. 
He  comes  to  it  not  l)ecause  ]jis  level  is  low,  bnt 
because  he  is  in  search  of  a  standard  higher  than 
himself,  and  one  that  shall  be  free  from  those  limi- 
tations wliich  he  has  found  in  his  inmost  nature. 
He  has  been  tauqht  to  reverence  above  all  tilings 
the  attribute  of  longevity,  eternity,  everlastingness. 
He  has  been  taught  to  reverence  that  attribute  just 
because  he  has  found  it  wanting  in  himself.  He 
l)elieves  it  to  be  wanting  in  himself  bv  reason  of 
the  changes  and  fluctuations  in  his  own  thoughts 
and  feelings.  This  belief  is  a  delusion,  but  it  is 
none  the  less  present  and  strong.  He  flies  for 
refuge  to  the  things  whicli  seem  free  from  change 
and  not  subject  to  fluctuation.  He  finds  them  not 
in  the  highest  but  in  the  lowliest  forms,  and  he 
makes  these  forms  his  gods.  He  is  unaware  as  yet 
tliat  they  owe  tlie  aspect  of  changelessness  not  to 
their  perfection  but  to  their  imperfection,  not  to 
the  presence  of  power  but  to  the  absence  of  life. 
His  worship  is  based  upon  an  erroneous  premiss; 
yet  it  is  the  expression  of  an  instinct  tliat  is  true 
and  real.  The  man  has  reached  the  knowledge  of 
his  individual  nothinoness,  and  lie  has  made  an 
honest  attempt  to  pay  some  tribute  to  the  source 
of  his  being. 

I  would  not   have  it   thought,  however,  that   in 


Introduction.  13 

this  attitude  of  the  Fetich  -  worshipper  we  have 
reached  any  real  recognition  of  the  nature  of  reli- 
gion. We  have  arrived  at  the  orirjin  of  religion, 
but  not  at  religion  itself.  Man  has  come  to  the 
knowledge  of  his  own  absolute  dependence ;  but 
religion  can  only  begin  where  absolute  dependence 
ceases.  The  sense  of  individual  nothingness  has 
led  him  to  the  recognition  of  an  outward  cause; 
but  what  is  to  lead  him  into  communion  with  that 
cause  ?  Clearly  it  must  be  something  above  and 
beyond  the  feeling  of  absolute  dependence,  must  in 
some  sense  be  a  counteraction  of  that  feeling.  Eeli- 
gion  is  not  merely  a  getting ;  in  its  deepest  essence 
it  is  a  giving.  It  begins  with  the  sense  that  it 
derives  everything  from  another,  but  it  must  cul- 
minate in  the  persuasion  that  it  has  something  to 
give  back.  It  has  its  root  in  the  feeling  of  depen- 
dence on  the  divine ;  it  must  reach  its  flower  in  the 
desire  to  rise  to  the  divine.  Before  it  can  reach 
that  flower  the  thing  wdiich  has  been  first  sown 
must  die;  the  sense  of  absolute  dependence  must 
be  broken.  The  primitive  man  can  attain  the 
knowledge  of  a  first  cause  by  the  realising  of  his 
own  nothingness,  but  he  can  only  commune  with 
that  cause  by  arriving  at  the  sense  of  liberty. 
Communion  is  a  giving,  and  he  who  gives  must  feel 
himself  to  be  free.  The  stage  of  passiveness  must 
be  superseded  before  religion  can  begin. 

Now  the  defect  of  the  Fetich-worshipper  is  his 


1 4  Messages  of  the  Old  lidiyions. 

state  of  passiveness.  His  sense  of  dependence  is  too 
absolute;  before  he  can  rise  it  must  be  broken.  I 
am  aware  that  I  am  here  in  direct  contradiction  to 
the  popular  view.  The  popular  view  regards  the 
primitive  man  as  having  fallen  into  error  by  select- 
ing an  object  of  worship  from  things  too  far  beneath 
him  to  be  reverenced.  Paradoxical  as  it  may  seem, 
I  Jiold  the  error  to  lie  in  the  opposite  extreme.  The 
object  of  worship  selected  by  the  prhnitive  man  is, 
to  my  mind,  too  far  above  him.  The  piece  of  wood 
or  rag  or  stone  to  which  he  bows  is  a  detrimental 
object  of  reverence  precisely  from  the  fact  that  it  is 
reverenced  by  reason  of  its  transcendentalism.  He 
has  chosen  it  because  it  is  unlike  himself,  because 
it  is  removed  from  everything  which  his  experience 
has  ever  realised.  He  recognises  it  as  divine  because 
it  seems  to  be  free  from  what  he  regards  as  the 
limits  of  the  human  spirit,  because  it  reveals  no 
spontaneity,  no  inward  movement,  no  structural 
change.  His  earliest  worship  is  directed  to  that 
which  is  most  remote  from  his  own  humanity;  his 
reverence  for  the  divine  is  dictated  by  his  repudia- 
tion of  the  human. 

How,  then,  is  this  dream  to  be  broken  ?  How  is 
the  primitive  man  to  be  brought  to  the  recognition 
of  the  truly  religious  life  ?  There  are  two  possible 
ways  in  which  the  delusion  might  be  dispelled — 
either  by  the  depression  of  the  Fetich,  or  by  the 
elevation   of   the   spirit.     If   the   Fetich-worsliipper 


Introduction.  15 

were  permitted  for  a  sufficiently  long  time  to  ex- 
amine the  object  of  his  reverence,  he  would  cer- 
tainly come  to  see  that  it  did  not  possess  that 
attribute  of  changelessness  in  which  he  has  clothed 
it.  He  would  come  to  see  that  the  pebble  on  the 
beach  is  as  certain  to  be  worn  away  as  is  the  life 
of  the  individual  soul.  But  it  so  happens  that  the 
Fetich-worshipper  cannot  get  a  sufficiently  long  time 
to  make  any  such  observation.  The  pebble  on  the 
beach  will  survive  him,  and,  in  spite  of  its  constant 
diminution,  it  will  during  his  earthly  life  never 
seem  to  get  less.  There  is  no  hope,  therefore,  of 
breaking  the  illusion  through  the  depression  of  the 
Fetich.  But  there  is  another  and  a  higher  method. 
What  if,  instead  of  depressing  the  Fetich,  it  were 
possible  to  raise  the  spirit  ?  What  if  the  primitive 
man  could  be  brought  to  change  his  first  conclusion  ? 
What  if  he  should  be  led  to  alter  his  mind  as  to 
his  own  nothingness  ?  He  has  fled  to  the  Fetich 
as  a  refuge  from  that  fleetingness  and  short-lived- 
ness  which  he  has  found  within  himself.  What  if 
he  should  find  that  after  all  he  is  not  fleetino- 
not  short-lived  ?  He  has  arrived  at  his  first  notion 
by  the  discovery  that  his  individual  life  had  a 
beginning  in  the  past;  what  if  he  should  come  to 
the  discovery  that  a  beginning  in  the  past  does  not 
involve  an  end  in  the  future  ?  Would  not  the 
effect  of  such  a  revelation  be  to  lift  the  spirit  of 
the  man  out  of  its  sense  of  dependence  into  a  sense 


1 6  Messages  of  the  Old  Religions. 

of  exaltation,  and  to  clothe  with  the  attribute  of 
divinity  that  which  in  days  of  yore  liad  been  the 
symbol  of  creature-life  ? 

Now  this  is  exactly  what  happens  in  the  history 
of  religion.  The  stage  of  Fetich- worship  is  broken 
not  by  the  depression  of  the  Fetich  but  by  the  eleva- 
tion of  the  spirit,  and  the  spirit  is  elevated  by  losing 
the  sense  of  its  own  short-livedness.  It  loses  its 
sense  of  short-livedness  by  reaching  the  conclusion 
that  a  beginning  in  the  past  does  not  involve  an 
end  in  the  future — in  other  words,  by  arriving  at 
the  conception  of  immortality.  As  long  as  the 
primitive  man  believes  himself  to  be  mortal,  he 
worships  the  pebble  and  the  rag.  As  long  as  he 
associates  changefulness  with  death,  he  deifies  that 
which  appears  to  have  no  change.  But  if  he  should 
cease  to  associate  changefulness  with  death,  if  he 
should  come  to  believe  that  an  object  may  be  per- 
manent which  has  yet  a  life  free  from  monotony, 
the  effect  must  inevitably  be  to  withdraw  his  ad- 
miration from  the  things  which  he  first  worshipped, 
and  to  concentrate  his  thoughts  upon  a  new  and 
an  opposite  ideal. 

The  question,  then,  is,  how  is  the  primitive  man 
to  be  brought  to  the  belief  that  changefulness  needs 
not  be  associated  with  fieetingness — in  other  words, 
how  is  he  to  arrive  at  the  notion  that  the  spirit 
of  man,  though  it  has  a  beginning  in  the  past,  may 
be  without  end  in  the  future  ?     Eemember  that  the 


Introduction.  17 

primitive  man  does  not  need  to  reach  the  idea  of 
immortality ;  he  has  already  reached  that  idea.  Xob 
only  has  he  reached  it,  it  has  been  the  master-light 
of  all  his  seeing.  It  would  not  be  too  much  to 
say  that  it  is  the  idea  of  immortality  which  has 
made  the  primitive  man  a  Fetich- worshipper.  We 
have  seen  in  our  previous  analysis  how  he  was 
first  led  to  the  search  for  a  cause  in  nature  by  the 
recognition  of  his  own  individual  nothinc,niess.  AYe 
have  seen  why  he  began  by  adoring  the  lowest  and 
not  the  higliest  objects  of  the  universe.  We  have 
seen  that  he  invested  with  divinity  the  pebble  in 
preference  to  the  star,  just  because  he  fancied  that 
he  found  in  the  pebble  a  greater  permanence  than 
in  the  star.  But  what  does  all  this  amount  to? 
To  nothing  less  than  a  search  for  immortality,  a 
search  for  some  principle  in  nature  wdiich  shall 
prove  an  abiding  principle.  The  idea  of  immor- 
tality, so  far  from  being  a  superstructure  in  the 
religious  temple,  is  itself  the  foundation-stone  of 
that  temple ;  it  lies  at  the  base  of  all  worship 
and  constitutes  the  condition  of  all  faith.  The 
idea  of  immortality  is  not  only  at  the  base  of  all 
religion ;  it  is  at  the  foundation  of  the  human 
intellect  itself.  How  has  the  Fetich  -  worshipper 
come  to  the  conception  of  a  cause  ?  It  is  just  by 
arriving  at  the  notion  that  his  own  individual  life 
has  been  too  short-lived  in  the  past  to  be  itself 
a  cause.     He  has  been  from  the  beginning  impelled 

B 


18  Messages  of  the  Old  Beligions. 

by  the  very  sense  of  his  nothingness  to  seek  before 
all  other  things  for  an  object  in  the  universe  which 
shall  suggest  abiding  permanence,  and  he  has  come 
to  the  idea  of  causation  because  his  earliest  con- 
sciousness has  been  the  conviction  that  tlie  fleetint; 
life  of  man  depends  on  a  life  that  is  not  fleeting. 

It  is  not,  then,  the  idea  of  immortality  which 
the  primitive  man  requires  to  reach.  His  error  as  a 
Tetich-worshipper  does  not  lie  in  the  absence  of  that 
idea.  He  has  all  along  recognised  the  necessity  for 
an  immortal  principle  in  nature ;  the  mistake  he 
has  committed  has  been  in  finding^  that  immortal 
principle  in  the  wrong  place.  He  has  not  souglit 
it  in  the  soul,  but  in  the  pebble,  in  the  wood,  in  the 
rag.  The  transition  wliicli  he  has  to  pass  through 
must  be  a  transition  not  into  the  idea  of  immortality 
but  into  the  sjphere  of  immortality.  He  must  learn 
to  see  in  the  soul  what  he  has  only  seen  in  the 
pebble,  the  wood,  the  rag.  He  must  lose  his  fear 
of  the  changeful.  He  must  cease  to  believe  that 
variety  of  experience  is  incompatible  with  continu- 
ance of  existence.  He  must  be  broui^lit  to  the 
conviction  that  the  human  spirit,  with  all  the  shift- 
ings  of  its  scenery,  may  be  itself  the  most  per- 
manent thiu!^  in  tiie  universe,  and  that  the  chancfes 
in  the  lile  of  inan  may  themselves  be  prompted  by 
the  movement  of  a  life  which  is  the  same  yesterday, 
to-day,  and  for  ever. 

How  is  tlie  primitive  man  to  be  bi'ought  to  such 


Introduction.  19 

a  conviction  ? — or  rather,  how  has  he  heen  brought 
to  it  ?  The  transition  from  the  immortahty  of  the 
Fetich  to  the  immortality  of  the  human  soul  became 
very  soon  an  accomplished  fact :  if  we  find  the 
first  generation  worshipping  the  piece  of  wood  or 
stone,  we  find  the  second  worshipping  the  spirits  of 
their  ancestors.  What  is  it  that  has  effected  this 
transition  ?  What  is  that  experience  in  human  life 
which  has  caused  human  life  itself  to  assume  an 
exalted  position  in  the  eyes  of  those  who  yesterday 
looked  upon  it  as  a  debased  and  worthless  thing  ? 
Mr  Spencer  would  explain  it  by  the  phenomena 
of  dreams  ;  I  think  it  would  be  more  correct  to 
say  that  it  was  produced  by  reflection  on  the 
waking  out  of  dreams.  It  is  quite  true  that  to  the 
primitive  man  the  dead  come  back  in  the  visions 
of  the  night,  and,  if  none  but  the  dead  came  back, 
it  would  be  easy  to  see  how  he  should  mistake  the 
visions  for  realities.  But  to  the  primitive  man 
everything  returns  in  sleep  as  well  as  the  dead. 
The  memory  of  the  dead  is  not  an  isolated  pheno- 
menon of  the  hours  of  night ;  the  whole  past  day 
comes  back  with  all  that  ever  w^as  in  it — its  lights 
and  its  shadows,  its  suns  and  its  systems,  its  men 
and  its  women.  There  is  no  account  taken  of  the 
difference  between  the  things  which  still  exist  and 
the  things  which  in  the  interval  have  passed  away ; 
it  is  a  universal  memory.  And  this  universality 
must  even  to  the  primitive  mind  deprive  the  memory 


20  Messages  of  the  Old  Religions. 

of  the  dead  of  all  significance.  How  can  it  have 
significance  wlien  it  is  only  one  phase  of  a  vast 
landscape  which  has  all  equally  and  in  every  detail 
been  reproduced  by  the  liand  of  sleep  ?  I  cannot, 
therefore,  accept  the  view  that  the  memory  of  the 
dead  in  dreams  had  any  large  share  in  awakening 
the  primitive  mind  to  a  sense  or  a  hope  of  its  own 
immortality.  But  I  think  that  the  phenomena  of 
dreams  do,  from  a  totally  different  direction,  suggest 
a  solution  of  this  difficult  problem.  It  is  not  in 
the  sphere  of  dreaming  itself  that  I  would  look  for 
an  explanation,  but  in  that  other  and  more  inter- 
esting phenomenon — the  awakening  out  of  dreams. 
When  the  primitive  man  reaches  the  stage  of  reflec- 
tion, is  not  the  study  of  this  fact  of  all  others  best 
suited  to  raise  him  into  the  hope  of  his  individual 
immortality  ?  For,  what  is  the  fact  that  is  here 
contemplated  ?  It  is  tlie  sensation  of  a  continuous 
life  which  has  preserved  its  continuity  through  a 
change  of  consciousness.  I  do  not  think  that  anv 
other  experience  in  the  world  is  so  fitted  to  convey 
to  the  primitive  mind  this  impression  —  not  even 
the  experience  of  the  awakening  out  of  dreamless 
sleep.  The  awakening  out  of  sleep  would  in  itself 
suggest  only  a  repetition  of  the  first  miracle,  a 
repetition  of  that  process  by  wliich  the  individual 
life  was  originally  lifted  out  of  nothingness.  It 
could  have  no  other  effect  than  to  impress  tlie 
untutored  mind  with   an   additional   and  reiterated 


Introduction.  21 

sense  of  its  own  impotence.  But  the  transition 
from  dreamland  into  waking  consciousness  is  a  very 
different  thing.  Here,  the  mind  is  itself  an  agent, 
an  actor  in  its  own  changes.  It  is  quite  conscious 
that  it  has  passed  from  one  world  into  another  world, 
and  that  in  the  course  of  that  passage  it  has  kept 
its  continuity.  It  has  been  recipient  of  experiences 
not  only  varied  but  contrary,  yet  through  all  the 
contrariety  it  has  remained  the  same.  It  has  made 
a  transition  from  one  stage  of  existence  into  another 
and  an  entirely  different  stage  of  existence,  and 
between  them  it  can  find  no  thread  of  connection. 
But  it  has  awakened  to  the  fact  that  it  is  itself 
the  thread  of  connection.  It  has  come  to  the  con- 
sciousness that  it  has  an  identity  quite  independent 
of  circumstances  and  quite  irrespective  of  similar 
experiences.  It  has  been  taught  the  new  and  the 
desiderated  truth  that  the  individual  life  of  man 
may  keep  an  unbroken  continuity  amid  the  constant 
breaking  of  every  outward  association  and  amid  the 
perpetual  shifting  of  all  extraneous  things. 

Now,  when  the  primitive  man  arrives  at  this 
thought,  he  arrives  at  a  new  revelation.  He  learns 
for  the  first  time  to  associate  the  idea  of  immor- 
tality with  the  life  of  an  individual  soul.  Hitherto 
he  has  associated  that  idea  only  with  things  from 
which  individuality  is  absent.  He  has  given  the 
palm  for  longevity  to  those  objects  of  nature  which 
display  the  greatest  monotony,  and  therefore  mani- 


22  Messages  of  the  Old  Religions, 

fest  the  least  individual  power.  But  wlien  there 
breaks  upon  him  the  reflection  of  what  an  individual 
soul  really  is,  there  comes  inevitably  a  transference 
of  his  ideal.  When  he  finds  that  the  human  spirit 
within  him  is  capable  of  living  in  two  totally  dif- 
ferent worlds  and  yet  remaining  the  same,  when 
he  discovers  that  the  life  which  he  believed  to  be  so 
fleeting  is  able  to  subsist  in  the  midst  of  a  transition 
the  most  complete  and  the  most  radical,  the  effect 
will  assuredly  be  to  invest  that  life  in  his  imagina- 
tion with  the  attribute  of  immortality.  His  human 
spirit  will  cease  to  be  a  poor  contemptible  thing 
by  reason  of  its  shifting  scenery ;  that  which  was 
once  its  weakness  shall  be  deemed  its  glory.  The 
test  of  immortality  shall  be  no  longer  the  power  of 
an  object  to  remain  unchanged :  it  will  be  the 
powder  of  an  object  to  abide  in  the  presence  of 
changes ;  and  his  own  individual  life,  wdiich  has 
first  manifested  that  power,  shall  receive  his  first 
association  with  the  thought  of  everlasting  being. 

You  will  observe  that  when  the  primitive  man 
has  reached  this  stage  he  is  no  longer  primitive. 
The  detection  of  what  is  involved  in  the  transi- 
tion from  dreamland  into  waking  consciousness 
demands  already  that  the  man  should  have  arrived 
at  a  period  of  reflection.  Accordingly,  I  would 
place  the  recognition  of  the  soul's  immortality  in 
the  second  and  not  in  the  first  stage  of  the  history 
of  religion.     As  far  back  as  the  eye  can  reach,  we 


Inlroductim.  23^ 

are  confronted  by  the  spectacle  of  two  forms  of 
faith  dwelling  seemingly  side  by  side — the  worship 
of  the  inanimate  Fetich,  and  the  worship  of  departed 
souls.  Yet,  though  seemingly  side  by  side,  it  does 
not  follow  that  they  are  really  so.  For,  just  as 
in  the  world  of  space  things  which  in  reality  are 
far  apart  seem  in  the  distance  to  be  grouped  close 
together,  so,  in  the  world  of  time,  systems  which 
appear  to  be  contemporaneous  forms  of  thought 
may  be  actually  separated  by  many  generations. 
The  Fetich  -  worshipper  and  the  worshijDper  of  de- 
parted spirits  cannot  have  had  their  origin  in  the 
same  hour  of  the  day.  Both  are  in  search  of  an 
immortal  principle,  yet  they  seek  it  by  different 
roads  and  by  roads  wdiich  indicate  a  different  plane 
of  development.  The  Fetich-worshipper  seeks  tlie 
immortal  principle  amongst  the  thiugs  which  are 
changeless  and  monotonous  ;  the  worshipper  of 
departed  spirits  looks  for  it  amidst  the  varied 
manifestations  of  life.  The  forme;-  is  certainly  the 
earlier,  because  it  is  the  lower  and  inferior  form. 
The  latter  could  never  have  begun  to  be  until  the 
man  began  to  think.  Before  he  could  reverence  tlie 
spirits  of  the  dead,  he  must  begin  to  reverence 
the  spirits  of  the  living,  must  begin  specially  to 
reverence  the  only  spirit  which  he  directly  knows — 
his  own  individual  life.  Why  is  it  that  he  comes 
to  invest  the  dead  with  a  consciousness  and  a 
personality   outside   of   the   present   world  ?     It    is 


24  Messages  of  the  Old  Beligions. 

because  he  liimself  has  already  become  conscious 
of  having  lived  in  two  worlds — the  world  called 
dreamland  and  the  world  called  waking.  When  he 
becomes  conscious  of  that  fact  in  himself  he  transfers 
it  to  those  around  him,  transfers  it  especially  to  the 
spirits  of  the  departed.  He  says,  "If  two  worlds 
are  mine,  may  two  worlds  not  also  be  theirs  ?  If 
I  have  been  able  to  keep  my  continuity  through 
a  transition  so  marked  and  so  complete  as  that  from 
dreamland  into  waking,  may  not  those  whom  I 
call  the  dead  have  also  preserved  their  continuity 
in  a  transition  from  the  things  of  earth  to  the 
things  beyond  the  earth."  And  when  he  has  made 
this  reflection  the  man  changes  the  object  of  his 
reverence;  he  transfers  it  from  the  Eetich  to  the 
soul.  He  turns  from  the  worship  of  bare  matter  to 
the  worship  of  pure  spirit.  He  had  begun  by  rever- 
encing nothing  but  the  form;  his  tendency  now 
is  to  reverence  the  spirit  without  the  form.  The 
souls  of  his  ancestors  are  not  originally  conceived  as 
clothed  in  an  earthly  garment.  He  thinks  of  them 
as  shadowy,  impalpable  presences,  for  the  most  part 
invisible  and  inaudible,  manifesting  themselves 
through  imperceptible  avenues  and  influencing  the 
mind  by  subtle  agencies.  The  man  in  his  first 
moment  of  reflection  revolts  entirely  from  the  ideal 
of  his  primitive  days.  It  would  almost  seem  as 
if  he  designed  to  compensate  the  human  soul  for 
the  dishonour  he  had  done  her.     In  his  primitive 


Introchidion,  25 

age  he  had  denied  the  divinity  of  spirit  because  he 
had  found  it  subject  to  change ;  in  his  reflective 
age  he  denies  the  divinity  of  matter  because  he 
finds  it  unable  to  keep  up  with  the  changes  of 
the  spirit. 

Have  we  now  reached  the  completed  idea  of 
religion  ?  No ;  there  is  one  stage  remaining  to 
render  it  perfect.  Hitherto  the  miad  of  man  has 
vibrated  between  two  extremes.  The  Fetich- wor- 
shipper has  reverenced  the  body  where  it  has  least 
life ;  the  worshipper  of  departed  spirits  has  rever- 
enced the  life  wdiere  it  has  least  body.  There  is 
wanted  something  which  shall  unite  the  extremes. 
The  reflective  mind  lias  revolted  from  the  tendency 
of  the  primitive  mind,  but  it  has  revolted  too  far. 
In  its  recoil  from  the  inanimate  wood  and  stone,  it 
has  deserted  too  much  the  clothing  of  the  temporal 
form.  The  spirits  of  the  departed  before  whom  it 
bows  are  too  ethereal,  too  shadowy.  They  are 
in  want  of  flesh  and  blood  to  take  away  their 
vagueness ;  they  wait  for  some  earthly  covering 
to  invest  them  with  the  attributes  of  the  human. 
Accordingly,  there  is  wanted  a  principle  of  religion 
whereby  that  which  has  been  unclothed  shall  be 
clothed  upon.  The  bodily  element  is  dead  without 
the  spirit,  but  tlie  spirit  is  equally  dead  without 
the  body.  The  stage  of  completed  religion  must 
be  one  in  which  there  is  recognised  a  union  betw^een 
body  and  soul,  one  in  which  the  Fetich  is  lifted  out 


26  Messages  of  the  Old  Religions. 

of  its  meanness  by  being  filled  with  the  spirit  of 
life,  and  in  which  the  spirit  of  life  is  emancipated 
from  its  vagueness  by  being  incorporated  in  the 
form  of  the  fetich. 

The  whole  subsequent  history  of  religion  is  an 
accomplishment  of  this  process  —  a  narration  of 
those  steps  by  which  the  spiritual  life  finds  in- 
creasingly its  embodiment  in  outward  things.  Per- 
haps the  first  stage  is  the  spiritualising  of  the 
Fetich  itself.  The  man  takes  the  piece  of  wood  and 
the  piece  of  stone  and  carves  them  into  a  human 
imasfe.  When  he  has  done  this  we  ojive  him  for 
the  first  time  the  name  of  idolater.  And  yet, 
nothing  is  more  certain  than  that  we  have  used 
the  name  in  the  wrong  place  and  time.  If  it 
was  applicable  at  all,  it  was  to  the  earlier  period. 
It  is  when  the  man  reverences  the  unconscious 
Fetich  believing  it  to  be  unconscious,  that  we  ought 
really  to  call  him  an  idolater.  When  he  comes  to 
form  the  Fetich  into  a  likeness  of  himself,  when 
he  begins  to  carve  the  wood  and  stone  into  the 
image  of  the  human,  he  has  already  in  the  deepest 
sense  ceased  to  be  an  idolater.  He  is  no  more 
an  idolater  than  the  little  girl  is  an  idolater  when 
she  dresses  and  speaks  to  her  doll ;  in  fact  the  two 
cases  are  almost  identical.  The  little  girl  speaks 
to  her  doll  not  as  a  doll  but  as  something  more. 
If  she  realised  the  fact  that  it  was  a  doll,  she 
could   not    speak   to  it.     It   is  because  she  invests 


Introduction.  27 

it  with  her  own  girlhood,  with  her  own  prospective 
womanhood,  that  slie  is  alone  able  to  make  it  an 
object  of  communion.  So  is  it  with  the  childhood 
of  man.  He  begins  to  dress  in  his  own  likeness  the 
forms  which  he  sees  around  him,  and  then  he 
proceeds  to  commune  with  the  image  he  has  made. 
But  it  is  essential  to  the  very  existence  of  such 
an  intercourse  that  he  should  have  ceased  to  view 
these  forms  merely  as  what  they  are.  It  is  essential 
that  he  should  see  them  transfigured  into  his  own 
likeness,  lit  up  by  his  own  intelligence,  permeated 
by  his  own  spirit.  It  is  essential  that  he  sliould 
think  of  them  as  responsive  and  capable  of  re- 
sponding to  the  aspirations  of  his  human  heart 
through  the  possession  of  a  kindred  nature  and  the 
sharing  of  a  common  life. 

I  do  not  think,  however,  that  the  childhood  of 
the  human  race  can  long  continue  to  rest  in  the 
adoration  of  these  lower  forms.  It  seems  to  me  that, 
when  man  has  once  arrived  at  the  notion  of  the 
glorification  of  spirit,  he  will  naturally  be  most 
attracted  to  those  objects  which  require  least  trans- 
figuration. We  have  seen  how  in  the  earliest  age 
he  was  drawn  to  the  lower  rather  than  to  the  higher 
objects  of  nature  from  the  fact  that  he  found  the 
latter  too  like  himself.  That  fact  will  now  have  the 
exactly  opposite  tendency;  it  will  attract  instead 
of  repelling.  He  has  come  to  find  that  the  cap- 
acity for  cliange  is  not  a  mark  of  perishableness 


28  Messages  of  the  Old  BeUgions. 

but  of  permanence.  Accordingly,  the  things  which 
he  once  avoided  on  account  of  their  cliangeful- 
ness  shall  be  precisely  the  things  which  he  shall 
now  most  earnestly  seek.  The  higher  regions  of 
nature  shall  be  to  him  a  more  congenial  sphere  of 
worship  than  the  monotonous  materials  from  which 
he  selected  his  Fetiches.  He  will  go  with  most 
alacrity  to  the  things  most  like  himself,  the  things 
most  allied  to  the  movements  of  life.  He  will  go  to 
the  sea,  to  the  winds,  to  the  rivers,  to  the  stars, — to 
everything  that  exhibits  motion  and  indicates  con- 
tinuance in  change.  His  new  Pantheon  will  be 
filled  by  the  gods  of  the  upper  air,  because  in  the 
gods  of  the  upper  air  he  shall  find  the  objects 
nearest  to  his  own  being.  He  shall  interpret  their 
movements  after  the  analogy  of  spirit,  shall  clothe 
them  in  the  attributes  of  his  human  life,  and  shall 
reverence  in  them  the  vision  of  that  profound 
mystery  which  he  himself  has  found  to  be  living 
within  him. 

It  is  a  very  barren  subject  of  inquiry  to  ask 
whether  at  this  stage  of  his  religious  history  the 
man  shall  worship  many  gods  or  one.  If  I  brought 
a  company  of  children  into  a  large  room  in  whicli  I 
had  previously  placed  a  variety  of  toys,  what  would 
be  the  effect  of  this  variety  ?  Would  the  children 
be  attracted  simultaneously  to  all,  or  would  they 
fix  their  minds  upon  one  and  the  same  ?  Clearly, 
they   would    follow   neither   of    these    alternatives 


Introduction,  29 

They  would  d either  be  united  in  the  admiration  of 
the  whole,  nor  would  they  be  agreed  in  recognising 
the  superior  excellence  of  any  single  object;  but 
each  would  fix  his  attention  upon  that  particular 
thing  which  best  suited  his  own  ideal.  One  might 
be  drawn  to  the  image  of  a  wooden  horse,  another 
to  the  imitation  of  a  ship,  a  third  to  the  similitude 
of  a  steam-engine.  But  the  point  for  us  to  observe 
is  that,  whatever  the  object  might  be  on  which  the 
attention  of  each  child  should  be  fastened,  this 
object  to  that  chihl  would  become,  for  the  time, 
supreme.  Whether  it  were  horse  or  ship  or  steam- 
engine  that  first  attracted  its  admiration,  the  object 
of  attraction  would,  for  tlie  instant,  be  the  only 
object  in  its  universe.  It  would  hold  sway  to  the 
exclusion  of  all  others.  The  period  of  its  reign 
might  be  short-lived ;  it  might  last  a  few  hours  or 
it  might  expire  in  a  few  minutes ;  but  during  tlie 
time  of  its  continuance  it  would  rule  alone  and 
unrivalled.  Every  other  form  would  vanish  from 
the  sphere  of  the  child's  observation.  When  it 
entered  the  room  it  would  find  many  objects ;  but, 
the  moment  it  had  made  its  choice,  it  woidd  see  only 
one.  It  would  regard  the  possessions  of  the  other 
children  with  a  species  of  contempt,  and  the  other 
children  themselves  with  a  certain  amount  of  pity. 
It  would  say  of  its  own  new-found  idol,  "  There  is 
none  among  the  gods  like  unto  thee." 

Xow    all  this   is  highly  pertinent  to  the  present 


30  Messages  of  tlu  Old  Religions. 

question.  The  children  of  the  human  race  are 
exactly  in  the  position  of  my  hypothetical  child. 
They  are  brought  into  a  large  room  which  has 
been  already  stored  witli  a  multitude  of  attractive 
things.  These  things  are  not  equally  attractive  to 
all.  Each  child  gravitates  towards  a  different  object 
— one  to  the  sun,  one  to  the  moon,  one  to  the  stars, 
one  to  the  rivers  or  winds  or  seas.  But  whatever 
tlie  object  of  choice  may  be,  it  is,  while  it  lasts, 
supreme.  He  who  worships  the  winds  worships 
them  exclusively,  sees  in  them  the  arbiters  of  all 
other  things.  It  is  another  question  altogether,  how 
long  that  worship  will  last;  the  childhood  of  the 
race  cannot,  any  more  than  the  childhood  of  the 
individual,  retain  for  a  lengthened  period  one  object 
in  its  admiration.  To-morrow  in  all  probability 
its  allegiance  will  be  transferred  from  the  winds 
to  the  sun  or  to  the  river.  The  one  point  for  us  to 
observe  is  that  during  the  time  of  its  allegiance  it 
recognises  no  other  form  but  that  which  has  first 
attracted  it,  admits  into  its  worship  no  other  object 
of  adoration  than  that  before  which  it  has  already 
bowed. 

This  is  not  Polytheism  and  it  is  not  Monotheism  ; 
it  is  what  Max  MuUer  calls  Henotheism.^  It 
cannot  be  said  to  be  either  the  recognition  of  many 
gods  or  the  recognition  of  one ;  it  is  the  recognition 

^  Lectures  on  the  Origin  and  Growth  of  Religion  as  illustrated 
by  the  Religions  of  India,  p.  285. 


Introduction.  3 1 

of  one  2focl  at  a  time.     The  child-world  does  with 

o 

the  objects  of  its  religion  what  the  child-life  does 
with  the  objects  of  its  play  —  selects  that  which 
suits  it  best,  and  keeps  it  until  it  is  tired  of  it. 
In  this  religious  stage,  therefore,  there  is  an  element 
both  of  Polytheism  and  of  Monotheism  which  is 
yet  different  from  either.  I  do  not  indeed  think 
it  possible  that  Polytheism  as  an  actual  experience) 
ever  existed.  I  do  not  believe  that  the  human 
mind  at  any  stage  of  its  being  is  really  capable 
of  fixing  its  attention  on  more  than  one  thing  at 
a  time.  I  say  really ;  apparently  it  is  the  reverse. 
The  transitions  of  human  thought  are  so  rapid,  and 
the  combinations  of  human  thought  are  so  multiform, 
that  one  is  apt  to  be  deceived.  It  often  seems  as 
if  the  mind  were  contemplating  two  objects  at 
once,  wdien  in  reality  it  is  fixed  upon  a  single  object. 
It  is  quite  possible,  for  instance,  to  have  in  view 
at  one  moment  the  different  parts  of  a  house.  Yet 
in  this  case  the  object  of  contemplation  is  really 
one;  the  house  constitutes  a  single  image,  and  all 
its  different  parts  are  comprehended  at  a  glance  as 
things  which  make  up  this  image.  So  is  it,  I 
believe,  with  the  systems  called  Polytheism.  There 
have  been  times  when  men  have  seemed  to  bow 
down  before  a  multitude  of  gods,  and  to  recognise 
the  sovereignty  of  many  heavenly  rulers.  Yet, 
closely  looked  at,  the  rule  of  the  many  will  be 
found    to    melt    into    the    crovernment   of   the   one 


32  Messages  of  the  Old  Eeligioiis. 

Tliis  so-called  polytheism  is  in  reality  the  recogni- 
tion of  one  vast  building — a  house  not  made  with 
hands,  eternal  in  the  heavens.  The  apparent  diver- 
sity in  the  objects  of  worship  is  really  nothing 
more  than  the  diversity  subsisting  between  the 
different  parts  of  an  eartlily  dwelling.  Looked  at 
singly,  each  part  lias  a  function  of  its  own,  and 
each  part  may  be  described  in  distinction  from 
the  others.  But,  viewed  in  connection  with  the 
whole,  there  is  no  plurality;  there  is  in  truth 
one  structure  and  only  one,  and  all  the  varieties 
in  the  formation  of  the  separate  angles  are  lost 
and  overshadowed  in  the  unity  of  the  completed 
building. 

I  hold,  then,  that  as  a  matter  of  fact  Polytheism 
is  impossible ;  that  there  never  really  existed  or 
could  exist  a  time  in  which  the  mind  of  man  had 
its  attention  simultaneously  fixed  upon  two  objects 
of  worship.  The  nearest  approach  to  the  worship  of 
more  gods  than  one  is  the  stage  called  Henotheism, 
in  which  there  is  indeed  recognised  a  plurality  of 
heavenly  objects,  but  in  which  the  place  of  honour 
is  occupied  by  each  in  turn.  Even  here,  there  is 
no  real  plurality.  Each  ruler  may  have  a  short 
reign,  but,  while  it  lasts,  his  reign  is  absolute.  The 
attention  of  the  worshipper  is  at  no  time  fixed  upon 
more  than  one  god,  and  is  at  all  times  dominated 
by  one.  If  now  it  be  asked,  What  is  that  point 
of   transition  in  which  the  one  object  of  worship 


Introduction.  33 

becomes  a  permanent  object  ?  I  answer,  it  will  be 
found  at  that  stage  in  which  the  mind's  attraction 
passes  from  a  sensuous  admiration  into  a  principle 
of  love.  What  is  the  difference  between  a  child's 
devotion  to  its  toy  and  a  man's  devotion  to  his 
friend;  why  is  the  one  so  much  more  short-lived 
than  the  other  ?  The  reason  lies  in  the  fact  that 
the  bond  of  attraction  is  in  each  case  fastened  to 
a  different  object.  The  child  is  attached  to  his 
toy  through  a  cord  that  communicates  with  the 
eye ;  the  man  is  attached  to  his  friend  through  a 
bond  that  communicates  with  the  heart.  The  tran- 
sition from  the  many  gods  to  the  one  God  will  be 
accomplished  in  that  hour  when  a  corresponding 
transition  has  been  made  from  the  attraction  of  the 
eye  to  the  attraction  of  the  mind.  It  is  in  my 
opinion  a  great  mistake  to  imagine  that  man's 
sense  of  the  divine  unity  was  originally  awakened 
by  his  sense  of  natural  law.  I  believe  that  it  came 
before  the  coming  of  science,  before  the  knowledge 
of  nature,  before  the  perception  of  law.  I  believe 
that  it  was  awakened  not  by  the  intellect  but  by 
the  heart,  not  by  the  sense  of  material  fixedness, 
but  by  the  recognition  within  the  soul  of  a  perma- 
nent love.  If  the  child's  toy  were  adequate  to  tlie 
child's  whole  nature,  the  toy  would  hold  over  the 
child  a  perpetual  sceptre.  The  reason  w4iy  to- 
morrow it  changes  the  object  of  to-day  is  the  fact 
that  the  object  of  to-day  is  only  sufficient  for  the 

C 


34  Messages  of  the  Old  Belirjions. 

day;  to-morrow  the  child's  nature  will  be  bigger 
and  will  need  a  larger  toy.  So  is  it  in  the  world 
of  religious  history.  The  childhood  of  the  race  will 
have  a  new  god  each  day  as  long  as  each  god  shall 
only  suffice  for  each  day.  But  whenever  the  race 
shall  find  an  ideal  whose  attractiveness  shall  be 
coextensive  with  all  the  instincts  of  humanity, 
whenever  it  shall  fix  its  heart  upon  a  form  whose 
beauty  shall  be  unafTected  by  the  changes  in  natu- 
ral beauty,  it  shall  at  that  moment  enter  into  the 
recognition  of  an  object  of  worship  which  shall  not 
only  be  supreme  but  permanent  in  its  duration. 

It  is,  then,  a  barren  question  to  inquire  at  what 
time  the  race  of  man  passed  from  the  recognition 
of  the  many  gods  into  the  recognition  of  the  one. 
There  was,  I  believe,  no  such  time,  no  settled  date  at 
which  the  collective  human  species  made  a  simulta- 
neous transition  from  Henotheism  into  Monotheism. 
It  depended  entirely  upon  the  progress  of  the  in- 
dividual mind.  Those  men  who  had  received  from 
their  object  of  worship  the  deepest  satisfaction  of 
their  nature  would  keep  their  object  longest ;  those 
who  had  received  from  it  the  satisfaction  of  all 
their  nature  would  keep  their  object  alwayfi.  In 
one  community  there  might  exist  side  by  side  tlie 
representatives  both  of  the  old  faith  and  of  the  new 
— some  who  were  still  each  day  exchanging  one 
image  for  another,  and  some  who  had  fixed  tlieir 
hearts  upon  a  foundation  that  could  not  be  moved. 


Introduction,  35 

But  while  it  is  useless  to  seek  a  precise  stage  in 
history  when  the  worship  of  the  many  passed  into 
the  worship  of  the  one,  there  is  a  search  for  unity 
which  is  far  more  legitimate  and  far  more  satis- 
factory. Instead  of  trying  to  determine  at  what 
time  the  many  gods  were  combined  into  the  single 
Deity,  it  would  be  of  infinitely  more  purpose  to 
determine  what  made  it  possible  at  any  time  for 
such  a  combination  to  take  place.  Is  it  not  trans- 
parent on  the  very  surface  that,  if  the  many  have 
become  the  one,  it  can  only  be  because  there  is 
already  within  the  many  a  principle  of  unity. 
When  tw^o  are  made  one  it  is  because  the  two  are 
already  harmonious :  a  true  marriage  has  its  begin- 
ning not  in  the  tying  of  the  nuptial  cord,  but  in 
that  unity  of  life  which  has  existed  implicitly  in 
the  lives  of  the  separate  individuals.  Even  so  is 
it  in  the  religions  of  the  world.  If  to  every  race 
there  has  come  a  time  when  the  worship  of  one 
God  has  supplanted  the  worship  of  many  deities, 
it  can  only  be  because  in  the  worship  of  these  many 
deities  there  has  existed  from  the  beginning  one 
common  element,  one  underlying  principle  whicli 
has  made  them  already  a  unity.  The  marriage  is 
not  the  cause  but  the  effect  of  their  union,  the  last 
result  and  the  outward  expression  of  what  has 
been  all  along  latent  within.  What  is  thia  prin- 
ciple of  union  that  exists  already  in  the  diversities 
of  worship  ?     It  is  a  far  more  important  question 


36  Messages  of  the  Old  Beligions. 

than  the  historical  question  of  when  Monotheism 
began  to  be.  If  Monotlieisin  ever  began  to  be,  it 
was  only  by  reason  of  a  preceding  and  a  pre- 
existent  unity.  Kay,  if  ever  the  time  shall  come 
when  all  men  shall  worship  together  one  God,  one 
faith,  one  baptism,  it  shall  only  be  because  in  their 
separate  faiths  and  in  their  separate  baptisms  there 
has  been  a  connecting  bond  which  has  ensured  tlieir 
ultimate  union.  What  is  this  bond ;  what  is  that 
common  element  which  underlies  religious  diversity 
and  makes  it  possible  for  religious  diversity  to  pass 
away  ?  The  consideration  of  this  subject  demands 
a  separate  chapter. 


The  Common  Element  in  Religions.  37 


CHAPTEK    11. 

THE   COMMON   ELEMENT   IN   RELIGIONS. 

There  are  few  spectacles  which  have  habitually 
appeared  more  sad  than  the  variety  of  forms  assumed 
by  religious  worship.  To  the  eye  of  every  missionary 
the  number  and  the  variations  of  human  creeds  have 
always  seemed  amongst  the  things  most  to  be  de- 
plored in  the  world.  The  question  is,  Why  ?  No 
man  will  say  that  the  sight  of  variety  is  in  itself 
more  sad  than  the  spectacle  of  monotony :  every 
one  must  feel  that  it  is  the  reverse.  No  one  regards 
it  as  a  blemish  in  the  art  of  poetry  that  it  embraces 
within  its  pale  so  many  different  forms  of  poetic 
thought.  No  one  looks  upon  it  as  a  blemish  in 
the  art  of  painting  that  it  holds  within  its  sceptre 
so  many  different  ideals  of  the  painter's  power. 
Why  should  it  be  thought  a  blemish  in  the  aspect 
of  religion  that  it  is  found  throughout  the  world 
in  ever-varied  shapes  and  in  ever-changing  garbs  ? 
In  every  other  department  of  study  the  existence 
of  variety  is  reckoned  a  triumph.     Why  should  the 


3^  Messages  of  the  Old  RcUyions. 

sphere  of  religion  be  the  only  exception  ?  Why 
should  the  multiplicity  of  religious  beliefs  and  the 
diversity  of  religious  schools  be  viewed  by  earnest 
minds  as  indications  of  the  depravity  of  human 
nature  and  as  signs  of  incipient  development  in  the 
life  of  the  soul  ? 

Now  I  think  it  will  be  found  that  the  reason  of 
this  difference  lies  in  something  deeper — lies,  indeed, 
in  the  fact  that  religion  is  not  habitually  regarded 
either  as  a  science  or  as  an  art.  The  scientific  man 
seeks  the  presence  of  law  beneath  every  form ;  the 
poetic  man  seeks  the  presence  of  beauty  beneath 
every  form ;  but  the  religious  man  tends  originally 
to  recognise  only  one  form.  Every  nation  looks 
upon  its  own  mode  of  belief  as  an  accidental  privi- 
lege— something  which  has  fallen  from  heaven  as 
a  special  gift  to  itself.  Accordingly,  it  feels  con- 
strained from  the  very  outset  to  magnify  that 
element  in  its  faith  which  most  separates  it  from 
other  faiths.  It  not  only  glorifies  the  form — which 
is  legitimate — but  it  feels  bound  to  disparage  every 
other  form.  It  has  received  its  own  religion  not 
by  a  law  of  human  nature,  but  by  a  miracle  which 
has  set  the  law  of  human  nature  at  defiance.  It 
has  been  elevated  above  the  worship  of  other  lands 
as  far  as  heaven  is  distant  from  the  earth.  The 
worship  of  other  lands  is  therefore  to  it  only  a 
falsehood  and  a  blasj)hemy.  The  variety  in  the 
religious   opinions  around    it    is   a  source  of  inex- 


The  CommDn  Element  in  Religions.  39 

pressible  sadness.  Every  divergence  from  its  own 
form  of  faitli  is  a  divergence  from  the  path  of  holi- 
ness. Its  missionary  zeal  is  prompted  and  inflamed 
by  the  sense  of  this  surrounding  destitution.  It 
feels  impelled  to  establish  uniformity  of  worship, 
and  to  make  itself  the  pattern  of  this  uniformity. 
Yet  even  in  its  missionary  efforts  it  xloes  not  hope 
to  reach  the  hearts  of  men  through  a  human  chan- 
nel. Its  own  faith  has  come  to  it  by  miracle ; 
by  miracle  must  it  come  to  others  also.  The  only 
chance  for  the  establishment  of  religious  unity  lies 
through  the  suppression  of  humanity ;  for  the  human 
is  the  antithesis  of  the  divine,  and  God  is  only 
reached  by  the  annihilation  of  man. 

Xow,  if  this  view  be  the  true  one,  religion  is  the 
most  unscientific,  the  most  inartistic,  the  most  in- 
human thing  in  the  world,  and  the  longer  the  world 
lasts,  the  more  unscientific  and  the  more  inhuman 
it  must  become.  The  tendency  of  all  mental  pro- 
gress is  to  reduce  phenomena  under  one  law.  Every 
advance  of  thought  has  in  other  departments  been 
an  advance  in  unity.  If  religion  should  elect  to 
linger  behind,  its  position  must  ultimately  be  one 
of  absolute  solitude.  But  is  religion  to  linger  be- 
hind ?  For  some  time  back  there  have  been  signs 
of  the  contrary.  In  nothing  has  our  age  been  more 
distinguished  from  previous  ages  than  in  the  revolt 
from  this  first  conception  of  the  nature  of  faith. 
It  is  not  in  the  looseniuGr  of  its  creeds  and  formulas 


40  Messages  of  the  Old  Relirjions. 

that  the  nineteenth  century  is  distinguished  as  a 
Broad-Church  century.  Creeds  and  formulas  have 
been  loosened  before ;  the  age  of  the  Eeformation 
was  more  pronouncedly  an  age  of  religious  licence 
than  ours.  The  peculiarity  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury lies  in  this,  that  the  loosening  of  its  creeds  and 
formulas  is  not  a  cause  but  an  effect,  not  the  inau- 
guration of  a  movement  but  the  result  of  a  move- 
ment already  inaugurated.  It  is  not  a  negative 
but  a  positive  tendency  that  has  produced  the 
liberalism  of  the  nineteenth  century.  The  minds 
of  men  have  relaxed  tlieir  interest  in  details  only 
because  they  have  found  an  interest  in  the  existence 
of  a  general  principle  whose  being  was  hitherto  un- 
suspected. They  have  awakened  to  the  recognition 
of  the  fact  that  in  addition  to  religions  there  is  a 
religion.  They  have  come  to  believe  tliat  beneath 
the  various  forms  there  is  something  which  is  com- 
mon, that,  underlying  the  diversities  of  creed,  there 
is  already  existing  an  element  of  unity.  If  rever- 
ence for  the  form  has  declined,  it  is  only  in  order 
that  there  may  be  more  room  for  tlie  operation  of 
the  spirit.  The  movement  towards  the  recognition 
of  a  common  element  in  religion  has  been,  strictly 
speaking,  a  purely  modern  one.  It  found  its  initial 
note  in  the  latter  half  of  last  century.  It  was 
inaugurated  by  Lessing  in  his  "  education  of  the 
liuman  race."  It  was  taken  up  by  Herder  in  his 
search  fur  a  common  principle  of  universal  cvolu- 


Tlie  Common  Element  in  Eeligions.  4 1 

tion.  It  was  carried  on  by  those  systeins  of  German 
illuminism  wliich  during  tlie  first  quarter  of  tlie 
nineteenth  century  made  the  field  of  speculation 
itself  a  region  of  romance.  It  was  borne  into  our 
own  country  by  the  very  increase  of  those  mechani- 
cal appliances  which  are  supposed  to  minister  only 
to  the  outer  man.  The  increased  facilities  for  travel 
opened  np  lands  w^hich  w^ere  before  unknown,  and 
in  proportion  as  they  became  known,  the  points  of 
difference  between  them  and  us  were  minimised. 
The  spirit  of  liberalism  in  England  has  been  exactly 
contemporaneous  with  her  power  of  locomotion.  It 
is  popularly  said  that  travel  liberalises.  The  saying 
is  true,  but  it  is  not  true  for  the  popularly  given 
reason.  It  is  not  because  the  man  of  travel  is 
brought  into  contact  with  many  diversities  that  he 
becomes  enlarged  in  his  sympathies.  It  is  rather 
because  beneath  these  diversities  he  recognises  for 
the  first  time  a  common  bond  of  unity.  It  is 
because  he  wakens  to  the  conviction  that  human 
nature  is  very  much  the  same  under  all  circum- 
stances, and  that,  underlying  the  differences  of  cus- 
toms and  modes  of  life,  there  beats  within  the  heart 
the  same  impulse  and  the  same  instinct.  In  short, 
it  is  because  the  man  of  travel  arrives  at  a  sense 
of  the  world's  essential  smallness,  amid  its  wide- 
ness,  that  he  ceases  to  believe  in  the  exclusiveness 
of  his  own  privilege  or  in  the  monopoly  of  his  own 
creed. 


42  Messages  of  the  Old  Beligions. 

Such  has  been  the  position  of  our  country  duiing 
the  last  half- century.  It  has  obtained  ever-in- 
creasingly  a  door  of  entrance  into  other  lands,  and 
the  result  has  been  to  minimise  its  sense  of  their 
religious  differences.  It  has  found  beneath  these 
differences  an  underlying  unity.  Its  search  has 
been  stimulated  mto  a  new  direction.  It  has  ceased 
to  seek  for  the  points  of  divergence  between  other 
faiths  and  its  own;  it  has  begun  to  study  the 
points  in  which  other  faiths  do  not  diverge  from 
its  own.  It  is  trying  to  find  in  tlie  sphere  of 
religion  what  it  has  already  found  in  every  other 
sphere  —  an  element  of  contact  between  separate 
forms.  Just  as  it  has  discovered  a  principle  of 
unity  between  the  anatomy  of  the  higher  and  the 
anatomy  of  tlie  lower  organisms,  so  it  essays  to  find 
a  principle  of  unity  between  the  religion  of  the 
developed  and  the  religion  of  the  undeveloped  races. 
If  the  effect  of  this  tendency  has  been  to  abate  the 
ardour  of  missionary  enterprise,  it  has  also  been 
greatly  to  increase  its  facilities.  The  pioneers  of  a 
reh'gion,  the  men  who  seek  to  carry  their  own  form 
of  faith  into  other  lands,  no  longer  need  to  dejoend 
on  the  influx  of  a  force  purely  supernatural.  Tiiey 
can  henceforth  be  stimulated  by  the  thought  tliat  in 
the  minds  of  those  wliom  they  wish  to  proselytise 
there  is  already  existing  an  element  of  concord  with 
tlieir  own.  They  can  be  fortified  by  the  knowledge 
that  beneath  all  its  diverse  forms  there  is  even  now 


The  Common  Element  in  Religioris.  43 

in  operation  one  common  religion,  and  that  the  diver- 
sities in  the  form  are  themselves  only  able  to  endure 
by  reason  of  that  principle  of  unity  which  abides 
ever  the  same. 

What,  then,  is  this  principle  of  unity  which  un- 
derlies the  different  forms  of  religion  ?  When  we 
look  on  the  surface  of  the  surrounding  faiths  it 
almost  seems  as  if  there  were  no  such  bond.  It 
cannot  be  said  that  tliere  is  any  single  doctrine  of 
religion  on  which  the  worshippers  of  every  creed 
are  agreed.  Even  those  beliefs  which  to  modern 
development  seem  elementary  have  at  no  time  com- 
manded the  simultaneous  assent  of  the  united  world. 
The  belief  in  a  personal  God  has  occupied  little 
place  in  the  religious  philosophies  of  India.  The 
doctrine  of  individual  immortality  has  had  no  share 
in  the  development  of  Buddhism.  The  recognition 
of  a  moral  government  in  the  universe  has  been  a 
comparatively  late  fact  in  the  history  of  religion.  If 
even  in  its  most  elementary  aspects  the  study  of 
human  worship  reveals  little  trace  of  unity,  the 
diversities  which  it  displays  must  be  still  more 
broadly  marked  when  we  pass  from  first  principles 
to  secondary  details.  On  the  whole,  it  may  be  fairly 
concluded,  that  wherever  religious  unity  is  to  be 
found,  it  cannot  be  found  in  the  acceptance  of  a 
common  object  of  worship.  It  may  be  doubted  if, 
even  within  the  pale  of  any  one  religion,  there  is 
really  recognised  a  common  object  of  worship.     "We 


44  Messages  of  the  Old  Religions. 

do  not  make  an  object  common  by  giving  it  a  single 
name.  Millions  of  human  beings  are  united  in  the 
recognition  of  Jesus  Christ  as  the  highest  ideal  in 
the  universe ;  but  it  may  be  questioned  if  to  any 
two  individuals  amongst  them  the  ideal  is  exactly 
the  same.  The  Christ  of  the  middle  ages  is  no 
more  like  the  Christ  of  modern  times  than  the 
Jupiter  of  ancient  paganism  is  like  the  God  of 
scientific  evolution.  A  universally-sided  character 
can  never  be  universally  seen  in  precisely  the  same 
light.  The  Christian  claims  for  Christ  such  a  char- 
acter, and  as  the  result  of  that  claim  he  must  be 
prepared  to  give  up  the  hope  of  any  unity  which 
shall  be  based  upon  the  sight  of  one  outward  form. 
Is  there  any  other  direction  in  which  w^e  can  look 
for  religious  unity  ?  If  we  cannot  find  it  in  a 
common  object  of  worship,  is  there  any  other  region 
in  which  we  may  hope  to  discover  it  ?  There  is ; 
let  us  turn  from  the  object  of  worship  to  the  atti- 
tude of  the  worshipper.  And  to  facilitate  our 
search  in  this  direction,  let  us  take  an  analogous 
case,  the  case  that  of  all  others  presents  to  my 
mind  the  nearest  analogy — the  sphere  of  the  poet. 
No  man  will  deny  that  there  is  in  the  world  a  thing 
called  poetry.  No  man  would  ever  dream  of  believ- 
ing that  the  various  specimens  of  rhythmic  thought 
which  meet  the  eye  from  all  quarters  constitute, 
each  of  them,  a  separate  subject  of  study.  We 
all  feel  that  the  points  of  separation  between  them 


The  Common  Element  in  Religions.  45 

are  nothing  in  comparison  to  the  point  in  which 
they  are  agreed.  We  feel,  in  short,  that  they  are 
pervaded  by  one  and  the  same  spirit — a  spirit  of 
poetry.  But  if  we  ask  what  is  this  spirit  of  poetry, 
if  we  ask  where  lies  the  point  of  union  which 
makes  these  separate  verses  the  parts  of  a  single 
science,  the  answer  is  not  at  first  very  easy.  If 
we  look  on  the  surface  here,  we  shall  have  very 
much  the  same  experience  which  we  had  when 
looking  on  the  surface  of  religion  —  a  sense  of 
diversity  everywhere.  Here  also  it  may  he  said 
that  the  unity  cannot  lie  in  the  subject-matter.  It 
cannot  be  held  that  there  is  any  one  subject  on 
which  the  attention  of  poets  has  been  simultane- 
ously concentrated.  Every  sphere  of  nature  has 
been  ransacked  in  search  of  materials  for  the  poetic 
mind.  The  mountain  and  the  valley,  the  grand 
and  the  commonplace,  the  strong  and  the  gentle, 
the  grave  and  the  gay,  have  at  one  and  the  same 
moment  been  the  theme  of  the  sons  of  song.  Xor 
can  it  be  said  that  song  itself  has  been  the  medium 
of  union.  Poetry  needs  not  be  rliyme,  needs  not  be 
verse,  needs  not  even  be  rhythm.  Thomas  Carlyle 
is  the  most  unrhythmical  of  writers,  communicates 
his  thoughts  in  sentences  that  defy  the  possibility  of 
scansion ;  yet  Thomas  Carlyle  is  worthy  of  a  place 
amongst  the  greatest  of  the  poets,  worthy  of  a  place 
amongst  that  band  of  poets  whose  form  of  diction 
has   been    specially    rhythmical  —  the    prophets    of 


46  Messages  of  the  Old  Belirjions. 

Israel.  In  all  these  respects  the  idea  of  finding  a 
point  of  union  for  poetic  minds  is  shown  to  be 
abortive.  And  yet  it  remains  true  that,  in  spite  of 
these  variations  of  form,  no  one  can  fail  to  recognise 
that  there  is  a  point  of  union.  Every  one  feels 
that  there  is  a  line  of  demarcation  between  poetry 
and  prose,  and  that  this  line  of  demarcation  is 
marked  with  equal  distinctness  whatever  the  form 
or  the  subject  of  the  writing  may  be.  What  is  this 
line  of  demarcation  ?  "What  is  it  that  enables  a 
man  instinctively  and  instantaneously  to  say  of  any 
composition,  "  This  is  poetry,"  "  That  is  prose "  ? 
The  feeling  is  patent  to  all ;  is  it  possible  to  trans- 
late the  feeling  into  the  terms  of  science  ? 

I  believe  it  is.  I  believe  that  it  is  possible  to 
define  in  logical  terms  that  line  of  boundary  which 
separates  the  sphere  of  the  poet  from  the  sphere 
of  the  prose-writer.  I  think  it  will  be  found  that 
the  distinction  between  a  poetic  and  a  prosaic  state- 
ment lies  essentially  in  one  principle — incarnation. 
The  definition  I  would  assign  to  poetry  is  the  "in- 
carnation of  truth."  The  poet  gives  to  every  thought 
a  body.  He  clothes  one  thing  in  the  likeness  of 
another  thing.  His  mission  is  to  find  the  analogies 
of  nature.  He  is  to  the  man  of  science  what  John 
the  Baptist  was  to  Christianity  —  a  forerunner,  a 
pioneer.  If  it  is  the  province  of  the  man  of 
science  to  discover  a  common  law,  it  is  the  pro- 
vince of   the  poet   to   discover  a  common  likeness. 


The  Common  Element  in  Beligions,  47 

In  every  object  of  nature  and  in  every  thought  of 
mind  he  sees,  or  dreams  that  he  sees,  the  similarity 
to  some  other  thing.  He  unclothes  each  form  in 
order  that  he  may  clothe  it  anew,  in  order  that  he 
may  behold  it  dressed  in  the  similitude  of  some- 
thing else.  He  gives  to  matter  the  garb  of  spirit, 
and  to  spirit  the  form  of  matter.  If  he  looks  upon 
the  "gadding  vine,"  he  sees  in  its  gadding  the  grief 
for  Lycidas.  If  he  beholds  the  dawning  of  the  day, 
he  interprets  it  as  the  rosy  hand  of  morn  unbarring 
the  gates  of  light.  If  he  hears  a  record  of  the 
miracle  of  Cana  in  Galilee,  he  explains  the  trans- 
formation after  the  analogy  of  life — 

"The  conscious  water  knew  its  Lord  and  bliislied." 

Not  only  does  the  poet  clothe  one  object  in  the 
likeness  of  another ;  he  clothes  himself  in  the  like- 
ness of  everything  he  depicts.  Emerson  says  that 
if  you  want  to  paint  a  tree,  it  is  not  enough  to 
describe  the  tree,  you  must  he  the  tree.  The  poet 
must  be  everything  of  which  his  theme  discourses ; 
he  must  flow  with  the  stream,  bloom  with  the  flower, 
glitter  with  the  sunbeam,  whisper  with  the  zephyr, 
sparkle  with  the  fountain.  It  is,  in  short,  in  the 
idea  of  incarnation  that  all  poetry  begins,  continues, 
and  ends.  There  may  be  the  widest  differences  in 
subject,  in  form,  in  treatment,  but  in  this  one  respect 
there  must  be  a  common  soul.  That  which  separ- 
ates  everywhere  and  always   the  poetic   from  the 


48  Messages  of  the  Old  Religions, 

prosaic  mind  is  the  power  to  say,  "  Let  the  word  be 
made  Hesh." 

Now  all  this  is  not  irrelevant;  it  has  a  strict 
bearing  upon  the  question  on  which  we  are  en- 
gaged. If  there  is  any  point  where  the  secular 
blends  with  the  sacred,  it  is  in  the  sphere  of  the 
poet.  Poetry  and  religion  have  always  been  re- 
garded as  the  children  of  one  family;  whatever 
parentage  be  assigned  to  the  one  must  be  assigned 
to  the  other.  I  think  it  will  be  found  that  the  com- 
munity of  origin  is  accompanied  by  a  community  of 
essence,  and  that  what  constitutes  the  poetic  spirit 
amid  all  diversities  of  form  is  what  constitutes  the 
religious  spirit  amid  all  diversities  of  belief.  In  the 
religious  world,  as  in  the  poetic  world,  the  point 
of  union  between  different  schools  is  the  idea  of 
incarnation.  The  essence  of  religion  is  not  the 
belief  in  a  particular  object  of  worship,  but  it  is  the 
belief  that,  whatever  the  object  of  worship  may  be, 
the  worshipper  himself  is  made  in  the  image  of 
that  w4iich  he  adores.  This  I  believe  to  be  the 
one  element  which  lies  at  the  root  of  all  religion, 
wliich  is  common  to  all  diversities  of  form,  and  in- 
destructible by  the  suppression  of  these  diversities. 
Everything  else  is  but  the  body  of  worship ;  this 
is  its  souL  It  is  popularly  thought  that  the  old 
narrative  of  Genesis  is  peculiar  in  its  doctrine  that 
man  is  made  in  the  image  of  God.  This  is  a  grand 
mistake.     The  Book  of  Genesis  may  be  peculiar  in 


The  Common  Element  in  Religions.  49 

the  view  which  it  has  of  God;  it  is  not  singular 
in  holding  that  man  is  made  in  the  image  of  God. 
No  sacred  writing,  no  religious  ceremony,  no  the- 
ological dogma,  no  act  of  faith  or  prayer,  could 
possibly  be  based  upon  any  other  foundation.  The 
postulate  of  all  religion,  the  condition  preliminary 
to  all  worship,  is  the  conviction  that  between  the 
worshipped  and  the  worshipper  there  exists  from 
the  very  outset  a  bond  of  connection.  You  can  only 
believe  what  you  can  conceive,  and  you  can  only 
conceive  what  is  already  in  your  nature.  No  man 
can  figure  in  his  imagination  any  object  human  or 
divine  whose  elements  are  not  at  the  present  moment 
within  his  own  consciousness.  The  question  is  not 
between  a  God  bearing  our  own  image  and  a  God 
bearing  a  different  image;  it  is  between  a  God 
bearing  our  own  image  and  no  God  at  all.  There 
may  be  any  amount  of  diversity  in  the  superstruc- 
ture, but  the  foundation  is  uniform.  The  religions 
of  the  earth  constitute  not  a  series  of  temples,  but  a 
single  temple.  The  Father's  house  may  have  many 
mansions,  but  the  house  itself  is  one  and  indivisible. 
Every  form  of  faith,  every  mode  of  worship,  every 
approach  of  the  human  to  the  divine,  rests  upon  one 
and  tlie  same  foundation — the  belief  that  the  human 
is  already  in  the  image  of  tlie  divine ;  other  founda- 
tion than  this  can  no  man  lay. 

It  is  well  to  bear  this  in  view,  because  it  is  one 
of  the  subjects  on  which  there  has  been  a  great 

D 


50  Mess'-igcs  of  the  Old  Bdifjions. 

misconception.  It  is  often  thought  that  the  belief 
in  the  identity  of  the  human  with  the  divine  image 
is  a  belief  which  stamps  the  worshipper  as  belonging 
to  a  stage  of  primitive  development.  Accordingly, 
three  forms  of  reverence  have  been  proposed,  each 
of  which  is  regarded  as  a  more  developed  mode  of 
faith  on  the  ground  that  it  denies  this  identity. 
These  three  forms  are  —  Deism,  Pantheism,  and 
Scientific  Evolution.  Each  of  these  is  supposed 
to  mark  a  higher  stage  in  the  progress  of  thought, 
because  each  of  them  is  supposed  to  emancipate 
the  miud  from  the  old  doctrine  that  man  is  made 
in  the  image  of  God.  Now,  whether  these  be  or 
be  not  higher  stages  of  development  I  shall  not 
here  inquire ;  but  one  thing  is  certain,  they  are  not 
higher  on  the  ground  alleged.  Neither  deism  nor 
pantheism  nor  scientific  evolution  is  really  a  de- 
parture from  the  old  principle.  They  differ  in  their 
view  of  what  constitutes  the  dominant  Power  in  the 
universe;  they  are  all  based  upon  the  belief  tliat 
whatever  that  Power  be,  man  is  made  in  its  image. 
The  briefest  possible  examination  will  tend  to  make 
this  clear. 

Deism  is  the  reaction  against  the  idea  of  a  God 
manifested  in  the  flesh.  It  has  had  two  great 
movements  in  history — the  one  in  England,  the 
other  in  India  ;  the  one  directed  against  Christianity, 
the  other  against  Brahmanism ;  the  one  rising  in  the 
eighteenth  century   and   becoming   extinguished  in 


The  Common  Element  in  Bcligions.  51 

the  flames  of  the  French  Eevolution,  the  other 
originating  in  the  nineteenth  and  continuing  to 
the  present  day.  But  alike  of  the  English  and 
the  Indian  movements  it  must  be  said,  that  how- 
ever true  or  however  false  they  may  be  in  them- 
selves, they  are  both  failures  so  far  as  their  purpose 
is  concerned.  That  purpose  is  to  establish  an  object 
of  worship  upon  a  basis  above  the  world,  to  unveil 
the  statue  of  a  God  whose  nature  shall  be  free  from 
all  the  limits  of  humanity.  It  is  to  present  to  the 
eyes  of  men  the  portrait  of  a  Being  dwelling  not  in 
tabernacles  of  clay  but  enthroned  in  the  highest 
heavens  —  a  Being  omnipotent,  omniscient,  and 
eternal,  full  of  all  benevolence,  rich  in  all  wisdom, 
pervaded  by  all  love.  Yet,  what  is  this  conception 
but  an  incarnation,  a  God  manifest  in  the  flesh  ? 
It  is  the  wildest  delusion  to  imagine  that  a  man 
escapes  either  Christianity  or  Brahmanism  by  run- 
ning into  deism.  He  has  simply  lifted  his  God 
on  to  a  higher  physical  platform.  The  attributes 
which  he  reverences  in  the  object  of  his  worship 
are  essentially  human  attributes ;  his  God  is  still 
in  his  own  image,  though  the  image  is  placed  in 
heaven.  When  you  attribute  to  the  object  of 
your  worship  a  sense  of  omnipotence,  what  else 
have  you  done  than  to  assign  Him  a  human  limit  ? 
What  is  a  sense  of  omnipotence  but  the  conscious- 
ness that  one  has  power  to  overcome  any  obstacle  ? 
When  I  say  "  I  can  do  this,"  do  I  not  express  the 


52  Messages  of  the  Old  Rdigions. 

fact  tliat  I  feel  a  force  within  me  which  is  capable 
of  overcoming  a  force  that  I  perceive  without  me  ? 
The  very  statement  implies  the  idea  of  an  effort 
on  my  part,  and  the  idea  of  an  effort  is  inseparable 
from  the  idea  of  a  limit.  To  attribute  to  the  object 
of  your  worship  the  power  to  say  "I  can,"  is  to 
clothe  your  God  in  the  likeness  of  a  human  envi- 
ronment. As  long  as  you  reverence  that  whicli 
is  personal  you  can  no  more  escape  the  idea  of  in- 
carnation than  you  can  escape  your  own  shado^v. 
It  does  not  matter  where  you  place  the  personality  : 
you  may  lay  it  in  the  heavens  above,  or  you  may 
deposit  it  in  the  depths  beneath.  Assign  it  what 
locality  you  please,  it  is  an  incarnation  still,  and 
an  incarnation  equally.  It  is  an  incarnation  because 
it  is  personal.  It  is  a  manifestation  of  the  human 
not  because  it  inhabits  a  human  locality  but  because 
it  is  local  anywhere.  The  moment  I  have  said  of 
my  God,  "Lo  here,"  or  "  Lo  there,"  I  have  given 
Ilim  a  special  habitation,  and  the  moment  I  have 
given  Him  a  special  habitation  I  have  embodied 
Him  in  a  material  form.  The  effort  of  deism  to 
transcend  humanity  has  only  ended  in  tlie  old  ideal 
of  a  God  walkinGf  in  tlie  <jrarden. 

o  o 

The  second  attempt  to  get  rid  of  a  God  in  the 
Imman  image  is  Pantheism.  It  seeks  to  avoid 
tlie  human  image  by  imaging  God  everywhere. 
Instead  of  seeing  Him  in  the  likeness  of  a  human 
form,  it  proposes  to  see  Him  in  the  aspect  of  tlic 


The  Common  Element  in  Bcligions.  53 

united  universe.  It  looks  upon  Him  not  as  a  life 
circumscribed  within  a  particular  space,  but  as  a 
life  pervading  all  space  and  filling  everything  with 
its  presence  —  an  intelligence  that  sleeps  in  the 
plant,  dreams  in  the  animal,  wakes  in  the  man, 
vibrates  in  the  wind,  and  throbs  in  the  star.  By 
this  means  pantheism  hopes  to  emancipate  the 
world  from  the  original  and  primitive  conception 
of  a  Piuler  of  the  universe  whose  motives  and 
whose  attributes  are  analogous  to  the  soul  of  man. 
Yet  a  deeper  reflection  will  convince  us  that  this 
hope  of  the  pantheist  is  also  a  dream.  Eemote  as 
his  conception  seems  from  the  idea  of  a  God  in 
the  human  image,  it  is  really  neither  more  nor 
less  than  a  repetition  of  that  thought  in  another 
form.  AYhere  does  the  pantheist  get  his  conception 
of  an  all-pervading  life  ?  Is  it  not  from  the  con- 
iL  titution  of  man  himself  ?  Has  not  man  been  called 
a  microcosm  of  the  universe  ?  And  why  has  man 
received  this  name  ?  Is  it  not  simply  because  he 
exhibits  on  a  small  scale  the  features  of  the  col- 
lective whole  ?  ]\Ian  is  a  union  of  all  the  elements 
of  the  world.  He  unites  within  himself  matter 
and  spirit,  personality  and  im23ersonality ;  the  vege- 
table, the  animal,  and  the  rational.  The  idea  of 
an  all  -  pervading  life  is  essentially  a  human  con- 
ception, a  conception  derived  from  man's  observa- 
tion of  his  own  inward  nature.  The  existence  which 
I  call   the  soul  is  distinguished  specially  by  this. 


54  Messages  of  the  Old  Rclirjions. 

that  it  seems  to  concentrate  into  a  focus  things 
which  in  space  and  time  are  vastly  apart.  It 
gathers  into  one  picture  stars  and  systems  separated 
by  millions  of  miles ;  it  combines  into  one  thought 
times  and  seasons  between  which  ages  roll.  It  is 
from  this  perception  of  unity  in  diversity  that 
man  has  arrived  at  the  notion  of  a  life  which 
shall  include  all  other  lives.  It  is  because  he  feels 
within  himself  the  influence  of  a  power  which 
makes  the  past  present  and  the  distant  near,  that 
he  conceives  in  the  universe  the  existence  of  an 
agency  which  shall  be  equally  diffused  through 
every  form.  The  question  is  not  whether  this 
conception  be  or  be  not  just ;  that  is  a  matter  for 
the  apologist.  The  point  for  us  to  observe  is  that, 
whether  it  be  true  or  false,  the  thought  is  dis- 
tinctively human,  derived  from  human  nature  and 
suggested  by  human  analogy.  Pantheism  is  no 
revolt  from  the  primitive  conception  of  the  race. 
It  is  simply  the  reaffirmation,  in  a  new  furm,  of 
that  ancient  belief  which  from  the  beginning  has 
regulated  the  rise  of  religions — the  belief  that  man 
is  made  in  the  image  of  God, 
1[  The  third  attempt  by  which  it  has  been  sought 
to  set  aside  the  primitive  conception  is  the  mod- 
ern doctrine  of  Scientific  Evolution.  It  may  seem 
strange  that  I  should  rank  it  amongst  the  systems 
of  religion.  But  in  truth  it  has  been  nearly  always 
represented    as   a    new    form    of    reverence.      Tlie 


Tlic  Common  Element  in  Religions.  55 

scientific  evolutionist  proposes  to  substitute  tlie 
veneration  of  nature  for  the  veneration  of  powers 
above  nature,  and  he  is  quite  willing  to  print 
"nature"  with  a  capital  letter.  He  is  willing  to 
recognise  the  fact  that  we  are  in  the  presence  of 
a  Force  which  is  perfectly  inscrutable,  and  to 
express  his  sense  of  its  mystery  by  calling  it  the 
"  Unknowable."  All  he  insists  on  is  the  fact  that 
it  is  unknowable,  and  therefore  incapable  of  being 
imaged  in  a  human  form.  He  asks  us  to  substitute 
the  study  of  natural  law  for  the  study  of  things 
which  are  believed  to  be  supernatural,  and  to  occupy 
in  the  observation  of  physical  phenomena  that  time 
which  used  to  be  spent  in  the  investigation  of 
unseen  things. 

Now  we  have  no  quarrel  whatever  with  the 
printing  of  the  word  "  nature  "  with  a  capital  letter, 
nor  do  we  see  anything  irreligious  in  transferring 
our  veneration  from  the  things  which  are  unseen 
to  the  things  which  are  visible.  But  we  must  point 
out  here  once  more,  that  in  putting  the  natural  in 
the  place  of  tlie  human  we  have  not,  as  we  imagine, 
transcended  the  human.  We  are  really  on  the  lines 
of  the  same  primitive  conception  which  dictated  the 
religious  faith  of  our  fathers.  The  transition  from 
the  belief  in  a  Power  above  nature  to  the  belief  in  a 
Power  which  is  identical  with  nature  may  appear  at 
first  sight  to  be  a  revolt  from  the  old  conception 
of  man  in  the   imacje  of  God.     But,  in  the   lidit 


56  Mcsmges  of  the  Old  Religions. 

in  which  this  view  is  presented  by  the  doctrine  of 
evohition,  we  get  back  everything  whicli  has  been 
taken  away.  For,  what  is  the  doctrine  of  evohition  ? 
Is  it  not  just  the  doctrine  of  the  unity  of  species, 
just  the  belief  that  all  things  belong  to  one  and  the 
same  order  ?  If  the  scientific  evolutionist  removes 
the  pre-eminence  from  man,  he  does  not  give  the 
pre-eminence  to  anything  else.  His  aim  is  rather 
a  levelling  up  than  a  levelling  down.  He  does  not 
wish  so  much  to  deprive  human  nature  of  its  dignity 
as  to  invest  physical  nature  with  the  same  dignity. 
He  is  not  so  eager  to  materialise  spirit  as  to  spirit- 
ualise matter.  He  does  not  seek  to  deny  the  pres- 
ence of  a  life  in  man,  but  rather  to  establish  the 
belief  that  the  life  which  is  present  in  man  is 
present  also  in  every  object  of  creation.  He  says 
that  matter  itself  has  "  the  promise  and  potence  of 
life."  In  that  saying  he  has  reaffirmed  the  old 
doctrine  of  the  community  of  image  between  man 
and  the  Power  which  he  serves.  Tiiere  is  no 
longer  a  possibility  of  divergence.  They  both 
belong  to  one  order;  they  are  both  identical  in 
nature ;  they  both  follow  one  law  of  development. 
Extremes  meet.  The  doctrine  of  evolution  appears 
at  first  sight  to  be  at  the  furthest  remove  from  the 
old  doctrine  of  man  in  the  image  of  God ;  jQt  in 
reality  it  only  affirms  that  belief  in  a  new  form. 
For  the  name  "  God  "  it  substitutes  the  "  Universe," 
but    it   invests   this  Universe    with    the   attributes 


The  Common  Element  in  Beligions.  57 

which  men  of  old  time  applied  to  God.  It  invests 
it  with  the  right  to  be  venerated.  It  demands  for 
it  the  self-surrender  of  the  will.  It  claims  for  it 
the  service  of  the  hand  and  the  obedience  of  the 
life;  the  alteration  in  its  mode  of  worship  lies 
chiefly  in  its  change  of  name.  But  there  is  no 
change  in  its  conception  of  the  relation  of  man  to 
the  object  of  his  veneration.  If  he  was  told  by 
the  men  of  old  time  that  he  was  made  in  the 
image  of  God,  he  is  told  by  the  doctrine  of  evolution 
that  he  is  made  in  the  image  of  the  Universe.  He 
is  asked  to  surrender  himself  to  the  latter  on  pre- 
cisely the  same  ground  on  which  he  was  asked  to 
surrender  himself  to  the  former — the  ground  that 
he  himself  is  in  the  likeness  of  that  which  he 
venerates.  If  he  is  required  to  submit  himself  to 
natural  laws  and  to  resign  himself  to  the  leading 
of  nature,  it  is  on  the  understanding  that  he  him- 
self is  not  only  a  product  of  these  laws,  but  a  part 
of  that  system  of  nature  which  demands  the  sur- 
render of  his  will. 

We  arrive,  then,  at  this  conclusion :  The  common 
element  in  all  religion  is  the  idea  of  incarnation, 
the  belief  in  the  identity  of  nature  between  man 
and  the  object  of  his  worship.  The  difference  be- 
tween one  religion  and  another  is  a  difference  of 
ideal ;  but,  the  ideal  once  given,  all  religions  unite 
in  the  belief  that  the  worshipper  has  some  point 
of  analogy  to  that  which  he  worships.     It  is  not  so 


58  Messages  of  the  Old  I^eligmis. 

much  a  doctrine  of  religion  as  a  presupposition 
necessary  to  tlie  very  existence  of  religion.  On  the 
acceptance  or  the  rejection  of  this  belief  depends  the 
question  whether  man  shall  or  shall  not  worship  at 
all.  All  efforts  at  divine  communion  are  based  upon 
the  recognition  that  there  is  a  common  ground  on 
which  the  human  can  meet  with  the  divine.  It  is 
the  root  of  all  prayer ;  it  is  the  source  of  all  sacri- 
fice ;  it  is  the  key  to  all  devotion.  Take  this  away, 
and  you  take  away  not  any  form  of  religion,  but 
religion  itself ;  not  any  article  of  faith,  but  the  very 
possibility  of  faith.  Communion  with  any  being 
either  in  earth  or  heaven  demands  as  a  preliminary 
t^ondition  that  there  should  exist  between  the  com- 
municants one  element  at  least  in  common,  one  trait 
of  identical  experience.  It  is  only  on  the  ground  of 
such  an  experience,  and  it  is  only  so  far  as  such  an 
experience  extends,  that  there  can  be  any  religion 
in  the  heart  or  any  veneration  in  the  life.  Eeligious 
faith  is  the  recognition  of  something  above  me,  but 
I  can  only  learn  that  it  is  above  me  through  some 
phase  of  my  nature  on  which  I  meet  it  as  an  equal. 

If  it  be  so,  there  follows  one  consideration  which 
is  of  great  interest  to  the  missionary.  It  is  of  no 
use  for  the  missionary  to  begin  his  crusade  by  vin- 
dicating the  possibility  of  an  incarnation:  that  is 
already  common  ground.  When  the  disciple  of 
Christ  goes  into  India  to  conquer  the  disciple  of 
Yishnu,  he  commonly  begins   by   proclaiming   the 


Tlie  Common  Element  in  Religions.  59 

doctrine  of  a  Word  made  flesh.  He  has  no  need 
to  proclaim  that  doctrine;  it  lias  been  proclaimed 
already.  It  lies  at  the  root  not  only  of  the  disciple 
of  Vishnu's  creed,  but  of  all  creeds.  It  is  the  basis 
of  universal  worship,  and  the  ground  on  which  all 
religions  can  already  stand  in  brotherhood.  The 
question  between  the  disciple  of  Christ  and  the  dis- 
ciple of  Vishnu  is  not  whether  the  Word  has  been 
made  flesh,  but  whether,  after  being  made  flesli, 
the  Word  is  worth  w^orshipping.  The  difference 
between  Christ  and  Vishnu  lies  not  in  their  incar- 
nation but  in  their  nature.  If  the  worship  of  Vishnu 
presents  a  poor  result  in  comparison  with  the  wor- 
ship of  Christ,  it  is  not  because  the  one  is  in  the 
flesh  and  the  other  out  of  it,  but  because  the  one  is 
a  rich  and  the  other  an  empty  ideal.  The  whole 
importance  lies  in  the  nature  of  that  image  after 
which  man  fashions  himself.  If  the  image  be  noble, 
the  life  will  be  noble  ;  if  the  image  be  mean,  the 
life  will  be  mean.  What  the  Christian  missionary 
has  to  impart  to  other  lands  is  not  any  doctrine 
about  his  ideal,  but  his  ideal  itself.  India  is  nar- 
rower than  Europe  not  by  the  absence  of  its  belief 
in  incarnation,  but  by  the  fact  that  it  incarnates 
something  whose  nature  is  not  enlarged,  Wliat  we 
w^ant  beyond  all  other  things  in  the  modern  mis- 
sionary is  the  proclamation  of  a  moral  ideal,  the 
setting  up  of  an  image  which  shall  itself  be  noble 
and  in  whose  likeness  it  shall  be  cfood  to  be  made. 


GO  Mcssnrjes  of  the  Old  Twligions. 

That  is  the  reason  why  the  preaching  of  the  modern 
missionary  should  be  above  all  things  a  moral  preach- 
ing. His  initial  note  must  not  be  the  Thirty-nine 
Articles  but  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  not  the 
insistence  on  a  dogma  but  the  revelation  of  a  life. 
There  are  many  who  hold  that  the  basis  of  Chris- 
tianity is  the  belief  in  the  doctrine  of  incarnation. 
So  it  is  ;  but  it  is  the  basis  not  of  Christianity  alone, 
but  of  all  religions  and  all  possibilities  of  religion. 
What  distinguishes  Christianity  is  the  largeness  and 
the  fulness  of  that  which  is  incarnated;  and  the 
lar^-eness  and  the  fulness  lie  in  its  moral  standard. 
In  the  holding  up  of  that  standard,  in  the  presen- 
tation of  that  image  in  its  unselfish  majesty  and  its 
sacrificial  power,  the  Christian  missionary  will  attain 
his  twofold  object  of  revealing  the  distinctiveness  of 
his  own  religion  and  preserving  at  the  same  time  its 
brotherhood  with  other  faiths. 


Tlie  Message  of  China.  61 


CHAPTER    III. 

THE     MESSAGE     OF     CHINA. 

The  various  attempts  to  trace  the  historical  develop- 
ment of  religions  have  for  the  most  part  been  dis- 
tinguished by  the  diversity  of  their  starting-point. 
There  has  been  no  general  agreement  as  to  tlicir 
order  of  precedence,  as  to  which  has  gone  before  and 
which  followed.  ISTo  universal  consent  has  estab- 
lished any  religion  in  a  position  of  superior  antiquity. 
Each  in  turn  has  claimed  the  priority  in  time,  and 
each  in  turn  has  found  supporters  and  advocates 
of  its  claim.  Some  have  placed  China  in  the  front 
as  regards  ancientness ;  ^  some  have  given  the  palm 
to  India ;  some  have  bestowed  the  laurel  on  Persia ; 
some  have  claimed  the  crown  for  Judea.  My  own 
opinion  is  that  there  are  no  facts  to  establish  any 

^  There  seems  to  be  evidence  for  the  statement  that  portions 
of  Chinese  territory  were  the  seat  of  organised  communities  two 
thousand  years  before  Christ.  See  Prichard's  Kesearches,  iv.  476. 
480  ;  Gutzlaff,  Chinese  History,  i.  75,  English  translation.  Kenouf 
makes  China  the  oldest  civilisation  (Hibbe}-t  Lectures,  1879,  p. 
124). 


G2  Messages  of  the  Old  Beligions. 

of  these  claims,  or,  to  speak  more  correctly,  that 
there  are  equal  facts  for  and  against  all  of  them. 
Every  one  of  them  has  in  it  elements  that  point  to 
a  remote  antiquity;  every  one  of  them  has  in  it 
elements  that  indicate  a  comparatively  late  stage  of 
the  world's  development.  I  believe  that  the  relation 
of  these  religions  to  one  another  is  not  the  relation 
between  the  steps  of  a  ladder  but  the  relation  be- 
tween the  branches  of  a  tree.  They  seem  to  me  to 
be  not  successive  but  simultaneous,  radiating  at  one 
moment  from  a  single  trunk.  I  have  already  indi- 
cated my  conviction  that  the  trunk  itself  has  been 
produced  by  a  process  of  historical  sequence.  I 
have  pointed  out  in  the  introductory  chapter  what 
seem  to  me  to  be  the  successive  steps  of  that  devel- 
opment by  which  religion  passed  from  a  germ  into 
an  actual  existence.  But  when  religion  has  become 
an  existence,  there  is  no  reason  in  the  world  why 
its  progress  should  be  only  that  of  succession.  ISTo 
man  holds  that  in  the  tree  of  human  life  the  devel- 
opment of  the  plont  must  be  completed  before  the 
development  of  the  animal  can  begin.  Is  there  any 
more  reason  for  holdino;  that  in  the  tree  of  relicfious 
life  two  different  phases  of  intellectual  growth  should 
not  be  contemporaneously  existent  ?  Is  it  not  con- 
sistent with  all  analogy,  that  when  once  the  com- 
mon basis  of  religious  life  has  been  formed,  the 
different  branches  of  that  life  should  break  forth 
almost  simultaneously,  and   should  exhibit  at  one 


The  Message  of  China.  G3 

moment  the  graduated  fruits  of  a  higher  and  a  lower 
culture  ? 

Adopting,  then,  this  standpoint,  and  waiving  all 
questions  of  precedence,  let  us  allow  each  branch  to 
stand  for  itself.  Instead  of  considering  the  place 
which  one  religion  occupies  in  relation  to  another, 
let  us  try  to  find  that  feature  in  each  religion  which 
is  distinctive,  and  that  in  each  distinctive  element 
which  is  of  greatest  significance.  If  by  this  course 
our  work  shall  be  less  philosophical,  it  shall  be  less 
speculative  and  more  on  a  level  with  experience. 
What  we  want  to  find  is  not  a  frame  but  a  picture ; 
not  a  theory  into  which  we  can  get  things  to  fit,  but 
a  portraiture  of  the  things  themselves.  Let  us  look, 
then,  at  this  branch  of  the  religious  tree  which  we 
call  "  China."  The  question  for  us  is  not.  What  is 
its  nature  ?  but,  What  is  its  distinctiveness  ?  What 
is  that  which  makes  the  branch  "  China "  different 
from  the  branch  '"India"  or  "Persia"  or  "Egypt"? 
I  may  be  reminded  that  this  is  a  very  wide  question. 
I  may  be  told  that  there  are  three  distinct  twigs  in 
the  branch  "  China,"  and  that  these  are  distinguished 
from  each  other  by  strong  marks  of  opposition.  It 
is  quite  true;  but  beneath  the  opposition  there  is 
something  common  to  them  all,  something  which 
makes  each  of  them  Chinese,  and  not  Indian, 
Persian,  or  Egyptian.  What  is  this  distinctly 
national  characteristic  ?  It  certainly  does  not  lie  in 
the  branch  itself.     There  is  nothing  peculiar  in  any 


64  Messages  of  the  Old  Religions. 

Chinese  doctrine,  nothing  that  may  not  be  easily 
paralleled  in  the  creeds  of  other  lands.  What,  then, 
is  that  element  which  has  given  to  the  religion  of 
China  an  aspect  almost  special,  and  has  impressed 
upon  its  features  the  mark  of  something  approaching 
very  near  to  originality  ? 

To  resume  the  metaphor,  let  us  look  at  the  branch 
again.  As  we  have  said,  there  is  nothing  peculiar 
in  its  nature ;  but  is  there  nothing  peculiar  in  its 
attitude  ?  Yes ;  if  we  examine  it  carefully  we  shall 
find  that  it  differs  from  the  surrounding  branches 
in  its  direction.  All  the  surrounding  branches  shoot 
forwards ;  the  Chinese  branch  is  bent  backwards  to- 
wards the  tree.  The  peculiarity  of  this  religion  in 
all  its  forms  is  one  and  the  same — its  repressiveness. 
It  would  not  be  correct  to  say  that  it  is  a  religion 
without  desire,  but,  in  the  strict  sense  of  the  word, 
it  is  a  religion  without  aspiration.  The  bird  that 
sits  on  this  branch  is  not  tuneless,  but  it  is  wingless  ; 
it  does  not  want  song,  but  it  wants  the  power  of 
upward  flight.  The  religions  of  surrounding  nations 
are  all  movements  towards  the  future;  they  seek 
rest  by  the  wings  of  a  dove  that  can  lift  them 
beyond  the  seen  and  temporal.  The  religion  of 
China  is  also  in  search  of  rest,  but  it  seeks  it  in 
the  opposite  quarter.  It  sees  the  home  of  its  spirit 
not  in  the  future  but  in  the  past ;  not  in  the  attempt 
to  fly  away  from  the  seen  and  temporal,  but  in  tlie 
effort  to  reach  the  origin  of  the  seen  and  temporal 


The  Message  of  China.  65 

Its  hope  to  find  rest  lies  not  in  looking  up  to  the 
heights  of  heaven,  but  in  contemplating  and  in 
seeking  the  foundations  of  the  earth.^ 

I  have  said  that  this  description  applies  to  the 
whole  of  China.  I  wish  to  emphasise  the  fact,  be- 
cause there  is  a  popular  notion  that  this  nation 
exhibits  rather  a  conflict  of  religions  than  one  uni- 
form faith.  It  is  true  that  it  does  exhibit  a  conflict 
of  religions,  but  my  contention  is  that  in  spite  of 
their  diversity  they  are  united  by  one  common 
element  which  makes  them  distinctively  Chinese. 
That  common  element  is  regressiveness ;  in  all  of 
them  the  branch  is  bent  backwards.  The  truth  of 
this  will  appear  if  we  glance  for  a  moment  at  the 
different  forms  of  Chinese  faith.  I  wish  to  avoid 
all  technical  language  and  to  present  above  all 
things  a  lucid  exposition.  Accordingly,  while  I 
shall  make  use  of  only  the  old  facts,  I  shall  try  to 
put  them  rather  in  an  English  than  in  a  Chinese 
dress.  I  shall  say,  then,  that,  excluding  the  form 
of  faith  called  Chinese  Buddhism,  which  is  not  a 
native  growth  of  the  country,  there  remain  three 
religious  parties  in  China.  The  first  and  the  furthest 
back  are  the  worshippers  of  the  ancestral  dead, 
those  who  keep  their  reverence  for  the  spirits  of  the 
departed.     We  have  seen  in  the  introductory  chapter 

^  The  whole  character  of  the  Chinese  mind  is  iu  keeping' with 
this  tendency,  being  essentially  prosaic.  See  Pauthier,  Chine,  p. 
43  :  Paris,  1839. 

E 


66  Messages  of  the  Old  I^clirjions. 

that  this  form  of  belief  is  one  of  tlie  earliest  in  tlie 
history  of  religions ;  and  the  faet  that  from  the  very 
beginning  it  has  prevailed  in  China  would  seem  to 
favour  the  notion  of  that  nation's  antiquity.  It 
would  do  so,  if  there  were  no  other  explanation. 
But  there  is  anotlier  explanation,  and  one  which  lies 
nearer  to  the  door.  Out  of  the  multitude  of  possible 
objects  of  worship,  why  should  the  Chinaman  have 
selected  this  ?  In  the  presence  of  sun  and  moon  and 
stars,  in  tlie  vicinity  of  mountains  and  lakes  and 
rivers,  in  the  contact  with  living  kings  and  existing 
mighty  men,  why  should  he  from  the  outset  have 
fixed  his  veneration  uijon  something  which  is  neither 
visible  nor  present,  but  departed  ?  It  cannot  be  his 
reverence  for  things  beyond  the  earth,  for  he  does 
not  reverence  things  beyond  the  earth.  The  very 
fact  that  he  has  fixed  his  mind  not  on  celestial 
spirits  but  on  the  spirits  of  the  departed  dead,  is 
significant;  it  shows  that  in  some  form  his  venera- 
tion must  be  connected  with  the  earth.  Why,  then, 
with  so  many  earthly  things  around  him,  has  he  put 
them  all  aside  in  order  to  bestow  his  reverence  on 
something  which  is  unseen,  unheard,  impalpable, 
incognisable  by  any  human  sense  or  through  any 
worldly  channel  ?  Does  not  the  reason  lie  in  the 
nature  of  the  Chinese  mind  itself  ?  Is  it  not  clear 
that  to  the  Chinaman  the  spirits  of  the  past  are 
more  venerated  than  the  spirits  of  the  present  pre- 
cisely because   his    own   constitutional  tendency  is 


The  Mcssarje  of  China.  67 

ever  towards  the  past  ?  We  see  individual  minds 
of  this  nature ;  why  not  individual  nations  ?  The 
Chinaman's  mental  constitution  is  not  the  effect  of 
his  worship ;  his  worship  is  the  effect  of  his  mental 
constitution.  He  reverences  his  ancestors  more  than 
his  descendants  because  his  mind  is  by  nature  retro- 
spective and  regressive.  The  branch  of  the  religious 
tree  is  bent  backwards  because  the  heart  of  the 
man  is  bent  backwards.  I  do  not  believe  that  to 
the  educated  Chinese  the  worship  of  ancestors  is 
anything  more  than  a  commemorative  anniversary, 
the  observance  of  a  festival  of  gratitude  to  the  mem- 
ory of  the  good  and  great  who  have  passed  away. 
But  even  as  such,  it  is  characteristic,  significant 
of  the  national  intellect.  It  shows  that  even  in  the 
earliest  times,  in  that  age  of  childhood  in  which  a 
nation  like  an  individual  is  generally  prompted  to 
press  forward,  the  mind  of  the  Chinaman  was  true 
to  its  future  self,  and,  in  strict  accordance  with  its 
whole  subsequent  destiny,  preferred  the  yesterday 
that  was  gone  to  the  morrow  that  was  coming. 

The  second  form  of  religious  reverence  in  China 
is  tlie  faith  which  was  revived  by  Confucius,  and 
which  bears  the  name  of  its  reviver.  Put  roundly, 
and  expressed  in  English  characters,  the  doctrine  of 
Confucius  may  be  said  to  be,  the  search  for  an  ideal 
heaven  through  the  rediscovery  of  a  primitive  earth.^ 

1  Confucius  himself  declares  that  he  cites  the  patterns  left  us  by 
the  ancients.     See  Pautliier,  Chine,  p.  134. 


C8  Messages  of  the  01  cl  Tietvjions, 

He  proposes  to  lead  men  to  a  conception  of  the 
lieaveuly  state  by  leading  them  back,  by  causing 
them  to  retrace  their  steps  over  the  road  by  which 
they  have  travelled.  The  whole  gist  and  marrow  of 
the  doctrine  is  regressiveness.  The  Chinaman  looks 
out  upon  the  existing  aspect  of  society  and  he  con- 
templates it  with  dissatisfaction.  He  has  no  hope 
whatever  that  his  dissatisfaction  will  be  removed 
by  the  advance  of  time;  it  is  to  the  advance  of 
time  that  he  traces  the  corruption.  Every  increase 
of  civilisation,  every  development  of  culture,  every 
progress  in  tbe  arts  of  life,  presents  to  his  mind  the 
aspect  of  a  decline.  His  perpetual  cry  is  the  prayer 
of  the  Jewish  king,  "Let  the  shadow  go  back  ten 
degrees."  It  seems  to  him  that  what  society  wants 
to  make  it  perfect  is  a  process  of  divestiture.  If 
man  would  see  in  earth  a  miniature  of  heaven,  he 
must  strip  the  earth  of  its  adventitious  ornaments. 
He  must  go  back  to  a  time  when  men  dwelt  in 
primitive  simplicity.  He  must  make  a  retrograde 
movement  towards  the  dawn  of  civilisation,  for  in 
its  dawn  lies  its  glory.  He  must  seek  those  be- 
giuniugs  of  life  in  which  communities  were  united 
not  by  the  laws  of  the  state  but  by  the  instincts 
of  the  life,  not  by  bonds  from  without  but  by  ob- 
ligations from  within.  He  proposes  to  reviv^e  the 
patriarchal  age — to  restore  the  glories  of  the  family, 
to  build  the  state  in  its  image  and  to  see  God  in 
that  image.     The  father  is  to  become  again  at  once 


The  Message  of  China,  GO 

the  king  and  the  priest  of  the  household ;  ^  he  13 
to  rule  over  all  and  he  is  to  sacrifice  for  all.  Wife 
and  child  and  domestic  servant  are  alike  to  he 
subject  to  his  will ;  but  he  in  turn  is  to  be  subject 
to  their  need.  Sarah  may  protest  if  Abraham 
should  desert  her;  Jacob  may  run  away  if  Isaac 
should  forget  his  fatherhood.  It  is  to  be  a  society 
founded  on  reciprocal  rights.  Ancestral  seniority  is 
to  confer  the  right  of  rule,  but  juniority  is  to  confer 
the  right  of  being  protected.  If  the  father  as  sov- 
ereign is  to  wield  the  highest  sceptre,  as  sovereign 
also  he  is  to  bear  the  weightiest  burden.  He  is 
not  merely  to  be  the  priest  for  himself  but  for  his 
household.  Every  sin  of  any  member  of  the  family 
is  to  be  the  father's  sin ;  he  is  to  bear  the  burden, 
he  is  to  meet  the  penalty,  he  is  to  offer  the  sacrifice ; 
his  responsibility  is  to  be  proportionate  to  his  power. 
Such  is  the  ideal  of  family  life  which  the  follower 
of  Confucius  proposes  to  revive.  And  when  he  has 
revived  it,  his  work  is  only  half  done;  he  has  to 
build  into  its  likeness  the  fabric  of  the  body  politic. 
He  has  to  construct  a  state  which  shall  be  modelled 
after  the  similitude  of  the  household,  to  rear  an 
empire  which  shall  be  fashioned  after  the  image  of 
the  family.  Here  again,  as  in  the  life  of  the  fam- 
ily, the  summit  of  power  is  the  summit  of  sacrifice. 

1  Ever  since  the  patriarchal  period  of  China  these  two  offices 
have  been  actually  united  in  the  Emperor.  See  Gut:ilaff,  Chiiieso 
History,  i.  142,  143. 


70  Messages  of  the  Old  Religions. 

The  emperor  is  the  head  of  the  state,  and  as  such 
he  has  almost  absolute  control,  but  he  is  only  the 
king  because  he  is  the  father  of  his  people.  If  he 
is  the  greatest  man  in  the  state,  he  is  also  the  most 
burdened — strictly  speaking,  the  only  burdened  man. 
If  a  sacrifice  has  to  be  presented  to  heaven,  it  is  the 
emperor  alone  who  presents  it.  It  is  not  that  the 
emperor  alone  is  allowed  to  have  his  sins  forgiven ; 
it  is  rather  that  all  sins  are  sins  of  the  emperor. 
He  alone  is  the  sacrificer  because  only  he  has  been 
the  transgressor.  The  individual  units  of  the  nation 
are  but  the  members  of  the  imperial  life,^  and  the 
imperial  life  is  answerable  for  the  multitude  of  in- 
dividual sins.  Such  is  the  Confucian  ideal  of  a 
kingdom — an  ideal  never  realised,  never  attempted 
to  be  realised  in  practice,  yet  existing  as  an  object 
of  imaginary  memory.  And  to  crown  the  whole, 
the  ideal  of  the  kingdom  of  earth  is  to  the  mind 
of  the  Chinaman  the  ideal  also  of  the  kingdom  of 
heaven.  Other  religions  have  looked  forward  to 
their  millennium  as  something  which  is  to  be  con- 
summated in  the  golden  future;  to  the  follower  of 
Confucius  it  is  something  which  was  realised  in  the 
remotest  past.  To  find  it  he  is  not  required  to  press 
forward  but  to  look  backward,  not  to  seek  the  set- 

^  The  emperor  himself,  viewed  as  an  individual  unit  or  private 
person,  is  of  no  more  account  than  his  people  ;  he  gets  his  value 
purely  from  his  official  character.  Many  emperors  have  in  private 
not  belonged  to  the  school  of  Confucius.  See  article  in  *  Nouveau 
Journal  Asiatique'  (1854),  iv.  292  sq. 


*  TIlc  Message  of  China.  71 

ting  but  the  rising  sun.  The  kingdom  of  heaven 
has  to  him  its  ideal  not  in  the  advance  of  human 
development  but  in  the  original  constitution  of  the 
most  primitive  human  society.  The  Jew  has  his 
Garden  of  Eden,  but  it  fades  from  his  sight  in  the 
vision  of  a  coming  and  a  higher  glory ;  the  China- 
man has  nothing  to  counterpoise  the  vision  of  his 
Eden,  and  he  sees  no  glory  but  that  which  is  passed 
away. 

I  shall  point  out  in  the  sequel  wherein  consists 
at  once  the  truth  and  the  fallacy  of  this  Confucian 
view,  and  shall  endeavour  to  indicate  the  reason 
why  a  really  high  theory  has  proved  utterly  in- 
effectual to  furnish  to  this  people  a  source  of  aspira- 
tion. But  in  the  meantime  let  me  briefly  pass  to 
the  one  remaining  party  amongst  the  original  beliefs 
of  China.  We  have  seen  how  in  the  worship  of  the 
ancestral  dead  the  nation  reverted  to  a  memory 
instead  of  a  hope.  "VVe  have  seen  how  in  the 
idealising  of  a  primitive  society  the  Chinese  mind 
again  sought  its  anchor  on  the  receding  rather  than 
on  the  approaching  shore.  "We  are  now  in  the  final 
phase  to  see  another  and  yet  a  different  form  of  the 
same  tendency.  The  final  phase  is  that  strange 
creed  which,  at  a  period  almost  contemporary  with 
Confucius,  found  its  exponent  in  the  mystic  Lao- 
tze.^     And  here  once  more  regression  is  the  order 

1  The  system  is  called  Taoism,  from  a  word  Tao,  whose  ety- 
mology 13  uncertain,  but  which  seems  to  indicate  the  surrender 


72  Messages  of  the  Old  Bcligions. 

of  the  day.  If  the  ancestral  worshipper  proposed 
for  imitation  the  men  of  a  previous  age,  if  the  fol- 
lower of  Confucius  sought  his  model  in  the  imagin- 
ation of  a  primitive  society,  the  disciple  of  Lao-tze 
virtually  went  further  back  still.  He  proposed  in 
effect  that  man  should  retrace  his  steps  into  the 
life  of  the  plant.  He  does  not  use  the  simile,  but 
he  clearly  expresses  the  thought.  He  looks  upon 
modern  society — the  society  of  his  own  age — as  a 
departure  from  primitive  simplicity.  What  makes 
it  a  departure  from  primitive  simplicity  is  the  accu- 
mulated product  of  human  consciousness.  Man  has 
become  too  reflective,  too  calculating,  too  aiming. 
He  has  set  himself  against  the  stream  of  nature, 
and  has  tried  to  alter  the  course  of  that  stream. 
Everything  in  the  w^orld  but  himself  yields  itself 
up  to  the  order  of  nature.  Man  alone  resists  its 
order,  and  therefore  man  alone  is  unhappy.  If  he 
would  cease  to  be  unhappy,  let  him  become  what 
other  things  are — unconscious.^  Let  him  yield  him- 
self again  to  that  fixed  order  of  nature  which  he  is 
powerless  to  change.  Let  him  go  back  to  the  life 
of  the  vegetable,  which  lives  without  knowing  that 
it  lives,  and  grows  without  considering  its  growth. 

to  a  fixed  order.  For  some  definitions  of  the  word,  see  Professor 
Douglas,  *  Confucianism  and  Taoism,'  p.  189  ;  also  Watters,  'Lao- 
tze,  a  Study  in  Chinese  Philosophy,'  p.  45. 

^  The  admiration  of  the  principle  of  unconsciousness  in  the 
system  of  Lao-tze  will  be  found  expressed  in  '  Tao-te-Kiug,' 
Julien's  edition,   Introduction,  p.   xiii. 


The  Message  of  China.  73 

Let  him  become  spontaneous,  uncalculating,  aimless ; 
let  him  cease  to  map  out  a  plan  for  his  earthly 
life  or  a  means  for  his  daily  bread.  His  course  is 
mapped  out  already  in  a  fixed  and  unalterable  way. 
He  needs  no  ship  nor  helm  nor  oar,  no  sail  nor  chart 
nor  compass.  He  has  only  to  become  sea-weed,  and 
to  drift,  ignoring  himself  and  everything  around ; 
the  order  of  nature  will  do  the  rest. 

I  have  thus  tried  in  a  few  sentences  to  describe 
rather  than  to  define  the  system  of  Lao-tze.  It  will 
be  seen  on  the  very  surface  to  present  in  some 
respects  a  marked  and  direct  contrast  to  the  con- 
temporaneous view  of  Confucius,  and  in  point  of 
fact  these  two  systems  have  been  generally  viewed 
as  indicating  contrary  aspects  of  the  Chinese  mind. 
Confucius  belongs  to  the  outward  order ;  Lao-tze 
to  the  mystical  and  introvertive.  Confucius  is 
occupied  with  the  problem  of  social  wellbeing; 
Lao-tze  is  concerned  only  with  the  peace  of  the 
individual.  Confucius  is  inspired  by  the  pride  of 
empire ;  L^o-tze  is  desirous  above  all  things  to  sink 
into  humility — not  the  humility  of  thinking  lowly 
of  one's  self,  but  the  humility  of  not  thinking  at  all. 
Confucius  requires  in  the  members  of  the  State  an 
interest  in  the  common  welfare;  Lao-tze  seeks  a 
mystical  resignation,  in  which  all  interest,  common 
or  individual,  is  forgotten.  These  are  the  points  of 
contrast,  and  I  do  not  attempt  to  deny  them.  But 
I  say  that  these  points   of   contrast  are  only  two 


74  Me^fingrs  of  the  Old  lid  if/ions, 

opposite  tendencies  of  one  national  ideal — tlie  spirit 
of  regress.  Just  as  the  same  sense  of  guilt  may 
wake  on  the  cheek  of  one  man  the  blush  of  shame, 
and  dim  that  of  another  with  the  pallor  of  fear,  so 
has  the  national  spirit  of  China  expressed  itself  in 
one  instance  by  an  exhibition  of  materialism,  and  in 
another  by  a  display  of  material  crucifixion.  Tlie 
system  of  Confucius  and  the  system  of  Lao-tze  are 
both  modes  of  one  spirit,  and  of  that  spirit  which 
essentially  belongs  to  China.  They  are  both  regres- 
sions toward  the  past;  their  difference  lies  simply 
in  the  fact  that  the  one  goes  further  back  than  the 
other.  Confucius  retraces  his  steps  to  the  primitive 
age  of  man,  and  attempts  to  find  there  a  model  for 
the  ages  to  come;  Lao-tze  retraces  his  steps  to  an 
age  more  primitive  still,  and  seeks  in  the  life  of  the 
unconscious  plant  to  bury  the  burden  of  human  grief 
and  care.  The  difference  in  their  form  is  acciden- 
tal; the  one  thing  not  accidental  is  their  common 
motive  of  regressiveness.  This  is  in  all  the  forms  of 
Chinese  faith  the  essentially  national  feature,  tlie 
one  element  which  distinctively  and  for  ever  marks 
out  this  branch  from  all  the  surrounding  branches 
of  the  religious  tree.  Neither  ancestral  worship, 
nor  the  doctrine  of  Confucius,  nor  the  creed  of 
Lao-tze,  presents  anything  that  is  new;  each  of 
them  can  be  paralleled  by  things  analogous  in  other 
climes.  The  element  which  is  distinctive  of  China 
amongst  the  religions  of  antiquity  is  the  fact  that 


The  Message  of  Cliina.  75 

whether  in  the  worship  of  the  departed,  or  in  tlie 
search  for  a  new  kingdom,  or  in  the  pursuit  of  a 
mystical  goal,  the  Chinaman  is  actuated  by  one  and 
the  same  desire — the  desire  to  regain  the  standpoint 
of  an  earlier  day. 

This,  then,  is  the  message  of  China  to  the  religious 
world,  "Go  back."  It  is  a  strange,  weird,  unex- 
pected message,  altogether  unlike  what  one  looks  for 
in  such  a  sphere,  and  altogether  unique  amongst  the 
voices  of  surrounding  nations.  "  Speak  to  the  chil- 
dren of  Israel  that  they  go  forward  "  are  the  words 
which  are  inscribed  on  the  threshold  of  the  Jewish 
temple.  They  form  the  key-note  to  the  whole  his- 
tory of  that  people.  And  they  are  the  key-note  of 
that  music  to  which  marches  nearly  all  religious  his- 
tory. The  impulse  to  go  forward,  to  press  toward 
the  mark  of  a  coming  prize,  to  leave  the  acquisi- 
tions of  the  past  behind  in  the  pursuit  of  a  higher 
goal,  has  been  the  almost  unbroken  aim  of  the  re- 
ligions of  mankind.  India  presses  forward  to  the 
future,  and  in  all  the  forms  of  her  faith  seeks 
refuge  from  the  present  hour  in  a  state  to  come. 
Persia  presses  forward  to  the  future,  and  looks 
for  a  solution  of  the  problem  to  the  ripening  circles 
of  the  suns.  Even  Egypt  presses  forward  to  the 
future;  the  motto  of  her  pyramids  is  not  so  much 
the  glory  of  antiquity  as  the  power  of  everlasting- 
ness ;  she  seeks  to  build  something  which  shall 
endure.      But  here  is  a  voice   which  seems  disso- 


76  Messages  of  the  Old  Piclvjions. 

nant  amidst  the  other  voices,  a  voice  which  says 
"  Go  back,"  where  the  others  say  "  Go  forward."  It 
is  remarkable  by  its  very  contrast;  it  arrests  us 
by  its  discordance.  Nor  is  it  a  voice  which  can  be 
drowned  by  the  others.  In  point  of  fact  it  has  not 
been  drowned.  It  has  been  powerful  enough  to 
arrest  for  centuries  the  development  of  one  of  the 
most  extensive  empires  in  the  world.  What  is  the 
secret  of  this  power  ?  That  it  has  a  secret  is 
beyond  question.  It  is  not  to  be  accounted  for  by 
anything  on  the  surface.  Climate  will  not  explain 
it,  for  it  looks  behind  the  existing  climate.  Soil 
will  not  explain  it,  for  it  ignores  the  present  soil. 
Priestcraft  will  not  explain  it,  for  the  sceptre  which 
it  wields  is  precisely  that  sceptre  which  priestcraft 
would  avoid — the  empire  of  primitive  culture  over 
existing  forms  of  civilisation.  Where  are  we  to  look 
for  the  source  of  that  strength  which  has  been  able 
to  attract  and  to  retain  the  minds  of  millions  under 
allegiance  to  an  ideal  of  the  past  ? 

In  answering  this  question,  let  us  first  consider 
whether,  in  the  history  of  religions,  there  be  any- 
thing analogous  to  this  tendency  of  the  Chinese 
empire.  I  have  said  that  it  is  something  unique 
amidst  surrounding  nations.  Is  there  anything  like 
it  amongst  nations  which  are  not  surrounding  ?  Is 
it  a  purely  isolated  phenomenon  in  the  sphere  of 
religious  thought  ?  I  think  it  is  not.  I  believe 
that  we  shall  find  the  true  analogue  to  the  tendency 


The  Message  of  China.  77 

of  the  Chinese  mind  if  we  extend  our  gaze  into  a 
wider  circle.  It  does  not,  as  we  have  said,  present 
in  this  respect  any  point  of  contact  with  India  or 
Persia  or  Egypt ;  but  it  does  present  a  point  of  con- 
tact with  something  which  is  at  once  more  modern 
and  more  universal — the  religion  of  Christ.  What 
is  the  secret  of  Christianity's  moral  power  ?  Strange 
as  it  may  seem,  it  is  regressiveness.  We  commonly 
boast  of  it  as  a  religion  of  progress ;  and  so,  doubt- 
less, it  is.  But  it  is  a  progress  which  has  been 
professedly  reached  by  a  process  of  retrogression. 
The  initial  command  of  Christianity  is  the  com- 
mand to  go  back.  The  Christian  soldier  receives 
at  the  outset  the  order  to  retreat.  The  distinctive 
motto  of  this  faith  is  the  preliminary  necessity  of 
regress,  "  Except  ye  be  turned  back  and  become  as 
little  children,  ye  shall  not  enter  into  the  kingdom 
of  heaven."  In  these  words  there  is  a  thoroughly 
Chinese  ring — a  more  distinctly  Chinese  ring  than 
that  which  is  supposed  to  reverberate  in  Christ's 
solden  rule.  Here,  as  in  the  faith  of  China,  we 
have  set  before  the  mind  the  ideal  of  a  great  State 
or  empire  which  is  to  represent  in  its  nature  the 
rule  of  the  Highest — a  kingdom  of  heaven.  Here 
we  have  set  before  the  mind  the  same  possibility 
which  besets  the  eye  of  the  Chinaman — the  possi- 
bility that  this  kingdom  may  be  actually  attained 
by  the  earth.  But  here  too,  in  more  striking 
resemblance   still,  the   road   to   the   attainment  of 


78  dressages  of  the  Old  licUjions. 

I  lie  goal  is  declared  to  be  a  regressive  road.  It  is 
declared  that  no  amount  of  progress,  no  advance 
of  civilisation,  no  addition  of  extraneous  materials 
can  of  themselves  hasten  the  coming  of  the  king- 
dom. The  first  step  must  be  not  a  learning  but 
an  unlearning,  not  a  clothing  but  an  unclothing, 
not  an  onward  development  but  a  backward  march. 
What  is  wanted  above  all  things  and  before  all 
tilings  is  a  new  beginning, — an  entrance  for  the 
second  time  into  the  stage  of  birth,  the  resuming 
of  life  in  the  form  of  a  little  child. 

The  key-note  of  Christianity  is  redemption  —  a 
buying  back.  It  expresses  the  thought  that  what 
man  wants  for  his  amelioration  is,  first  and  foremost, 
a  regressive  movement,  the  power  to  become  a  new 
creature.  And  a  moment's  reflection  must  con- 
vince every  one  that  Christianity  has  here  struck  a 
note  of  nature.  The  deepest  want  of  human  nature 
will  be  found  to  lie,  not  in  the  absence  of  some  future 
good,  but  in  the  presence  of  some  old  experience,  in 
the  fact  that  we  are  still  in  contact  with  some  ele- 
ment of  the  past.  Wherein,  for  example,  consists 
the  powerlessness  of  mere  morality  to  effect  a  re- 
form of  the  life  ?  Is  it  not  precisely  in  the  know- 
ledge that,  in  order  to  be  reformed,  the  life  must 
first  be  renewed?  You  tell  a  drunkard  of  the 
miseries  awaiting  him  in  this  and  other  worlds 
if  he  persists  in  his  downward  course;  you  point 
out  the  necessity  for  imposing  a  restraint  on  him- 


Tiic  Mcssigc  of  China.  79 

self,  and  for  cultivating  above  all  things  the  virtue 
of  abstinence.  "Why  is  it  that  the  man  to  whom 
you  speak,  while  perfectly  conceding  the  truth  of 
your  every  sentiment,  is  perfectly  uninfluenced  by 
any  motive  of  reform?  It  is  because  he  knows 
in  his  inmost  heart  that  no  reform  of  present 
action  would  really  make  him  a  new  man.  It  is 
no  use  to  tell  him  that  the  practice  of  sobriety 
would  free  him  from  future  torments ;  he  knows 
that  it  would  only  do  so  by  bringing  actual  tor- 
ments into  the  day  and  hour.  Abstinence  in  itself 
is  simply  thirst,  and  thirst  ungratified  is  torture. 
The  root  of  the  evil  lies  in  the  past,  probably  in 
the  ancestral  past.  If  the  man  could  reverence  his 
ancestors,  he  would  have  hope ;  but  this  is  precisely 
what  he  cannot  do.  He  has  received  from  these 
ancestors  an  heirloom  of  misery.  What  he  wants 
above  all  things  is  a  new  beginning,  a  rolling  back 
of  the  shadow.  Until  he  can  cast  back  his  eye  upon 
a  past  without  blemish,  upon  a  heredity  without 
taint,  upon  an  ancestry  without  spot  or  flaw,  he 
feels  that  every  attempt  at  present  reform  is  sim- 
ply an  effort  to  exchange  one  misery  for  another,  to 
substitute  for  the  inroads  of  passion  on  the  body 
the  ravages  of  passion  on  the  soul. 

Now  this  cry  for  a  new  beginning  is  precisely 
what  Christianity  professes  to  meet  and  satisfy. 
Its  power  over  the  moral  life  lies  mainly  in  the 
fact  that  it  claims  to  lead  back  that  life  to  a  fresh 


80  Messages  of  the  Old  Rclifjions. 

staiting-point,  or,  to  use  its  own  words,  "to  pure 
fountains  of  living  water."  The  strength  of  Christ- 
ianity lies  in  its  claim  to  reach  the  "  fountains." 
It  does  not  propose  to  purify  any  special  part  of 
the  stream.  It  proposes  to  go  back  to  the  begin- 
ning, to  the  stream's  source.  It  offers  to  alter  the 
whole  course  of  life's  flow  by  making  a  new  com- 
mencement, by  pouring  into  human  nature  a  fresh 
flood  of  heredity.  Its  watchword  is,  not  inappropri- 
ately, "  Salvation  by  lloocl."  It  proclaims  to  the 
world  that  it  needs  to  be  revivified,  born  again.  It 
tells  the  race  of  men  that  their  blood  has  become 
impure,  tainted,  cprrupted  ;  it  tells  them  that  no  mid- 
way cure  will  have  any  effect  in  arresting  the  mal- 
ady, that  moral  abstinence  will  at  best  only  remedy 
the  symptoms,  not  check  the  disease.  It  tells  them 
that  what  they  want  is  new  blood,  a  fresh  stream  of 
vitality  flowing  from  a  new  fountain  and  interrupt- 
ing altogether  the  cou-rse  of  the  old  heredity.  It 
proclaims  this  necessity,  and  it  offers  to  supply  it. 
And  herein  to  the  mind  of  the  flrst  Christian  age  lay 
the  secret  of  its  power.  Its  earliest  crown  was  not 
its  aspiration  towards  the  future  but  its  regress  to- 
wards the  past,  its  promise  to  roll  back  the  shadows 
and  let  the  soul  begin  anew.  It  was  this  which 
fascinated  the  mind  of  a  Paul ;  it  was  this  which 
made  to  him  the  difference  between  law  and  grace. 
Other  systems  might  offer  him  incentives  to  moral 
reformation;  other  creeds  might  inspire  him  with 


Tlw  Message  of  China,  81 

motives  to  abstain  from  old  vices ;  Christianity 
alone  presented  the  hope  of  a  buried  past,  the  pros- 
pect of  becoming  a  new  creature  by  starting  afresh 
and  unencumbered,  with  the  heart  of  a  little  cliild 
and  with  a  heredity  pure  as  heaven. 

Now,  such  was  in  germ  the  religious  message  of 
the  Chinese  empire.  Through  all  the  absurdity  of 
its  details  there  rings  this  one  note  of  truth — the 
necessity  for  a  retraced  past.  In  the  heart  of  the 
Chinaman  there  was  present  a  true  instinct  when 
he  placed  on  the  threshold  of  liis  temple  the  image 
of  a  new  beginning.  Every  nation  that  has  looked 
back  to  a  paradise  in  the  past  has  been  prompted 
so  to  look  back  by  an  anticipation  of  the  Christian 
impulse,  by  a  sense  of  tlmt  great  need  which  Christ- 
ianity has  claimed  to  supply.  The  Chinese  empire 
has  felt  in  her  collective  unity  what  every  earnest 
individual  man  has  felt  in  his  single  personality — 
that  in  order  to  advance  there  .must  be  retreat,  that 
in  order  to  reach  the  goal  there  must  be  a  return 
to  the  starting-point.  '  This  is  her  message  to  the 
world,  this  is  her  truth  for  all  ages,  and  by  this, 
even  in  her  dilapidation  and  decay,  she  beiug  dead 
yet  speaketh.  j 

Why,  then,  does  she  not  speak  effectually  ?  Why 
has  her  message  to  the  world  been,  after  all,  only  in 
germ?  Christianity,  like  the  Chinese  empire,  has 
proclaimed  to  the  world  the  necessity  before  all 
things  of  a  regressive  march,  and   Christianity  by 

F 


82  Messages  of  the  Old  Iielif/ions. 

that  proclamation  has  initiated  its  triumph.  The 
religions  of  China  have  never  triumphed;  even  in 
the  stagnant  East  they  have  not  held  their  own. 
Wherein  lies  the  difference  ?  It  lies,  after  all,  on 
the  very  surface.  Christianity  has  proclaimed  the 
necessity  for  a  new  beginning,  but  it  has  done  so 
only  for  the  sake  of  a  new  ending.  It  has  declared 
that,  in  order  to  inherit  the  kingdom,  the  man  must 
become  a  child ;  but  it  has  made  this  declaration  not 
for  the  sake  of  the  child  but  for  the  sake  of  the  man. 
Childhood  is  not  the  goal  of  Christianity.  The  re- 
tracing of  the  past  is  in  itself  no  object;  it  is  only 
the  means  to  an  object.  If  it  proposes  to  go  back 
to  pure  fountains  of  water,  it  is  merely  that  through 
this  purity  it  may  inaugurate  a  new  stream.  Its 
paradise  is  not  in  the  past  but  in  the  future ;  it  re- 
treats that  it  may  advance.  The  regress  is  but  a 
preliminary  step,  and  it  is  taken  witli  a  view  to 
higher  progress.  Hence  Christianity  has  been,  of  all 
religions,  the  most  progressive;  of  all  faiths,  that 
which  has  marched  most  abreast  of  the  times.  Xo 
form  of  worship  has  had  so  many  environments,  and 
no  form  of  worship  has  so  fitted  itself  to  its  environ- 
ments. The  reason  is  that  it  has  proclaimed  the 
emptying  of  the  soul  not  for  the  sake  of  emptiness, 
but  only  with  the  view  to  a  more  satisfactory  replen- 
ishment. It  has  proposed  the  removal  of  old  prepos- 
sessions in  order  that  the  spirit  of  man  may  meet  the 
world  with  a  fresh  eye  and  possess  all  things  new. 


The  Message  of  China.  83 

How  different  is  it  with  China !  Here,  as  in  the 
case  of  Christianity,  there  has  been  a  regress  towards 
the  past,  but  here  the  regress  has  been  for  its  own 
sake.  The  Christian  goes  back  in  order  that  he  may 
come  more  forward ;  the  Chinaman  goes  back  that 
he  may  rest  under  primeval  shadows.  The  Christ- 
ian's paradise  is  always  in  the  future  ;  the  China- 
man's Eilways  in  the  past.  The  Christian's  regress 
is  a  means  ;  the  Chinaman's  a  goal.  It  is  this  which 
constitutes,  from  an  intellectual  point  of  view,  the 
main  and  the  crowning  difference  between  the  two 
religions ;  it  is  in  this  lies  the  secret  of  the  one's 
progress  and  the  other's  decline.  The  religion  of 
Christ  and  the  religions  of  China  have  struck  a  com- 
mon note  of  truth  in  seeking  emancipation  from  the 
present  by  a  regress  into  the  past.  But  Christianity 
has  alone  perceived  that  the  value  of  such  a  retreat 
is  its  preparation  for  a  new  outset.  China  has  mis- 
taken the  means  for  the  goal,  has  reverenced  anti- 
quity for  its  own  sake.  Nor  is  this  the  worst ;  she 
is  seeking  from  antiquity  what  is  not  to  be  found 
there.  The  ideal  of  the  Chinese  religion  is  not  a 
low  ideal ;  it  is  on  the  whole  lofty  and  grand.  The 
error  is  rather  intellectual  than  moral,  rather  in  the 
judgment  than  in  the  soul.  China  has  erred  not  in 
what  she  hopes  for,  but  in  where  she  expects  to  find 
it.  Her  picture  of  a  kingdom  is  good  and  pure,  but 
she  has  made  a  mistake  in  imagining  that  the  past 
could  realise  such  a  picture.     She  has  luade  a  mis- 


84  Messages  of  the  Old  Ileli[/io7is. 

take  iu  supposing  that  the  goal  she  has  figured  to 
herself  could  ever  be  reached  in  going  back,  could 
ever  be  attained  anywhere  but  in  the  ripeness  of 
future  development.  She  has  placed  her  Eden  in 
the  primitive  age,  and  she  lias  been  oblivious  of  the 
fact  that,  could  she  reach  the  gates  of  that  primi- 
tive age,  she  would  find  only  the  flaming  sword, 
without  the  cherubim. 

To  bring  out  this  point,  let  us  take  the  two  great 
Chinese  systems  of  which  we  have  spoken — the 
system  of  Confucius  and  the  system  of  Lao-tze — and 
let  us  see  how  in  each  of  them  the  conception  is  the 
reverse  of  primitive.  The  doctrine  of  Confucius  is 
the  idea  of  a  kingdom  which  shall  be  based  on  the 
lines  of  the  patriarchal  age.  In  going  back  to  the 
patriarchal  age,  Confucius  is  actuated  by  a  very  lofty 
motive.  He  wants  to  build  up  a  State  after  the 
model  of  a  family,  to  have  the  relations  of  politi- 
cal life  rooted  and  grounded  in  reciprocal  love.  He 
divides  tlie  order  of  society  into  five  great  relations 
— father  and  son,  husband  and  wife,  elder  brother 
and  younger,  master  and  servant,  friend  and  friend. 
He  seeks  to  adjust  between  these  a  bond  of  sympathy 
which  shall  at  once  be  true  and  eternal,  and  which 
shall,  moreover,  typify  in  its  pure  perfection  the 
life  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven.  He  rightly  judges 
that,  in  order  to  adjust  such  relations,  he  must  seek 
a  new  beginning,  must  roll  back  that  tide  of  existing 
corruptions  wliich  have  been  the  product  of  years 


The  Message  of  China.  85 

of  misgovern  111  eiit.  EuL  does  he  judge  rightly  in 
thinking  that  the  new  beginning  is  to  be  itself 
the  goal  ?  Assuredly  not ;  it  is  here  lies  the  error 
of  his  system  and  the  mistake  of  his  nation.  It 
would  seem  that,  of  all  things,  the  purity  of  family 
relationships  belongs  least  to  the  primitive  age.^  It 
would  seem  as  if  it  were  one  of  those  ideas  which 
peculiarly  require  the  fostering  hand  of  a  long  devel- 
opment. Be  this  as  it  may,  it  is  quite  certain  that 
it  is  not  to  be  found  in  the  Chinaman's  patriarchal 
age.  Perhaps  the  purest  delineation  of  such  an  age 
ever  given  to  the  world  is  that  exhibited  in  the  Book 
of  Genesis ;  and  yet,  with  all  its  idyllic  features,  it 
is  far  from  pure.  It  is  a  state  of  societj  for  which 
one  may  well  apologise,  but  which  no  Western  mind 
would  ever  wish  to  reproduce.  And  why  ?  I  would 
answer,  just  because  it  is  patriarchal.  It  is  the 
reign  of  the  father  distinctively — that  is  to  say,  as 
distinguished  from  the  reign  of  the  mother.  Wher- 
ever such  a  society  prevails  there  is  one  uniform 
result ;  instead  of  monarchy  being  lost  in  fatherhood, 
fatherhood  is  lost  in  monarchy.  The  patriarchal 
relation  has  been  an  effort  to  obliterate  tlie  sense 
of  power  in  the  ties  of  home,  but  it  has  always 
ended  in  obliterating  the  ties  of  home  in  the  sense 
of  power;  instead  of  the  king   becoming  a  father, 

1  Dr  Lauder  Lindsay  adduces  authorities  to  prove  that  the  family 
relation  itself  is  a  comparatively  late  stage  of  animal  evolution  (Mind 
in  the  Lower  Animals,  i.  41,  par.  12  and  55.) 


86  Messages  of  the  Old  Religions. 

the  fatlier  has  become  a  king.  And  the  reason  is 
plain.  It  is  not  the  parent  as  snch  tliat  is  exalt- 
ed ;  it  is  only  one  member  of  the  parental  relation. 
The  father  of  the  family  is  crowned  to  the  exclusion 
and  to  the  disparagement  of  the  mother.  The  fact 
is  significant;  it  shows  that  despotism,  and  not 
home-life,  is  the  ruling  motive.  If  Western  civili- 
sation has  increasingly  reached  the  ideal  of  a  State 
modelled  on  family  relations,  it  is  because  Western 
civilisation  has  started  from  a  different  ideal  of  the 
family  itself.  It  is  because  it  has  learned  to  rever- 
ence not  merely  the  paternal  but  the  parental,  not 
merely  the  headship  over  the  household  but  the 
participation  in  a  common  life. 

It  is  because  it  has  started  from  the  patriarchal 
ideal  as  the  model  of  political  excellence,  that  the 
Chinese  empire  has  failed  to  realise  the  perfection 
for  which  it  is  seeking.  The  failure  has  been  evi- 
denced alike  in  its  speculative  and  in  its  practical 
life.  Its  speculative  life  has  been  utterly  dwarfed 
in  its  development.  It  seems  to  have  started  with 
a  monotheistic  idea  of  God,  and  Dr  Legge  maintains 
that  this  is  the  earliest  conception  in  its  whole 
religious  history.^  But  whither  has  it  departed  ? 
The  first  has  in  this  instance  not  been  the  last. 
The  idea  of  God  has  retired  into  the  background, 
and  its  place  has   been   taken   by   the  idea  of  the 

^  Religions  of  China,  p.  16. 


The  Message  of  China.  8? 

kingdom  of  heaven.^  The  Chinanian  has  sur- 
rendered himself  to  the  thought  of  a  divine  order, 
but  he  has  ceased  to  think  of  a  divine  Orderer. 
He  has  nowhere  denied  it  but  he  has  everywhere 
ignored  it,  and  the  ignoring  is  more  remarkable 
when  it  comes  as  the  sequel  of  a  previous  recogni- 
tion. Is  not  the  inference  plain?  The  Chinaman's 
idea  of  God  has  been  corrupted  by  his  own  system. 
He  has  started  with  the  notion  of  monarchy  in  the 
household,  and  therefore  the  idea  of  fatherhood  has 
become  to  him  a  synonym  for  distance.  He  has 
transferred  to  heaven  his  ideal  of  the  home-life, 
until  heaven  itself  has  ceased  to  be  associated  with 
anything  which  is  near.  God  is  only  felt  by  His 
rule,  and  He  rules  from  afar ;  He  is  Himself  unseen, 
unfelt,  unknown,  and  unknowable.  It  is  the  same 
result  which  is  found  afterwards  in  the  history  of 
Judea.  The  constant  contemplation  of  a  patriarchal 
God  identified  fatherhood  with  monarchy,  until  the 
idea  of  divine  care  was  lost  in  the  thought  of  divine 
majesty.  The  God  of  Judea,  like  the  God  of  China, 
retired  into  the  remote  distance  and  ceased  to  be  a 
recognised  agent  in  the  development  of  things  be- 
low. The  only  difference  was  that,  while  the  Jew 
filled  up  the  gulf  by  the  interposition  of  a  hierarchy 
of  angels,  the  Chinaman  left  the  gulf  unfilled,  and 

^  It  is  only  fair  to  state  that  the  most  mofleni  development  of 
Confucianism  is  to  some  extent  regressive  towards  the  primitive 
theistic  standpoint. 


68  Messages  of  the  Old  lielujlons. 

denied  to  the  spirit  of  man  u  visiuii  of  auglit  Ijcyond 
tlie  earth .^ 

And  ill  practical  life  alrso  the  iiitlueiice  of  the 
Chinese  ideal  has  been  equally  cramping.  It  has 
liad  a  peculiar  effect  in  lowering  the  standard  of 
woman.  Not  that  the  position  of  woman  in  China 
is  more  subordinate  than  in  other  parts  of  the 
East;  in  this  respect  the  Chinese  empire  compares 
even  favourably.  But  the  point  is,  that  from  the 
hopes  held  out  by  Confucianism  one  would  have 
expected  a  complete  subversion  of  tlie  Eastern  sub- 
ordination of  woman.  One  would  have  expected 
that  a  creed  whose  leading  principle  was  justice, 
whose  leading  article  was  reciprocity,  whose  lead- 
ing aim  was  the  establishment  of  a  kingdom  which 
should  be  based  on  the  adjustment  of  tlie  rights  of 
man,  would  have  found  for  womanhood  a  worthy 
and  a  ruling  sphere.  Proposing  as  it  did  to  fash- 
ion the  kingdom  after  the  model  of  the  family, 
we  should  have  thought  that  in  this  kingdom  the 
influence  of  the  female  would  have  had  dominant 
sway.  It  has  not  been  so,  and  why  ?  Clearly  be- 
cause the  Chinaman,  in  starting  from  the  ideal  of 
family  life,  has  started  from  that  ideal  in  its  most 
primitive    form.     He   has    sought  to   find    the  per- 

-  On  the  impersonal   character  uf  the  later  object  of  Chinese 
worship,  see  M'Clatchie's  "  Paper  on    Chinese  Theology  "   in  the 
Journal  of  the  Asiatic  Society,'  xvi.  397. 


The  Message  of  CJdua.  89 

fection  of  family  relaliuiiships  in  the  type  called 
patriarchal,  and  the  result  has  been  that  on  the 
Aery  threshold  of  his  development  the  idea  of  the 
parent  has  been  swamped  in  the  idea  of  the  mon- 
arch. Power,  masculine  power,  arbitrary  power,  has 
become  from  the  very  outset  the  symbol  and  the 
goal  of  the  life  of  home,  and  instead  of  the  kingdom 
being  built  up  after  the  model  of  a  household,  the 
household  has  been  constructed  after  the  model 
of  a  kingdom.  In  such  a  society,  by  the  very 
nature  of  the  case,  woman  can  have  no  ruling 
sphere.  Her  position  is  by  necessity  one  of  entire 
subordination.  The  empire  belongs  not  to  the 
parent  but  to  the  father,  and  the  submission  of 
the  child  is  based  not  on  love  but  on  law.  Hence 
Chinese  society  has  been  what  the  Chinese  empire 
has  been — a  state  destitute  of  feminine  features,^ 
hard,  cold,  rigid,  motionless.  It  has  exhibited  no 
flexibility,  no  variety,  no  changes  of  expression,  no 
capacity  to  be  moved  by  the  softer  influences.  It 
has  been  regulated,  in  theory  indeed,  upon  princi- 
ples of  the  strictest  justice,  but  it  has  been  the 
justice  not  of  instituting  equal  rights,  but  of  main- 
taining the  rights  of  original  possession. 

^  It  would  seem  as  if  modern  China  had  recognised  this  social 
want ;  she  appears  latterly  to  have  made  an  attempt  towards  tlie 
establishment  of  virgin  worship.  See  '  Nouveau  Journal  Asiatique,' 
p.  295. 


90  Messages  of  the  Old  Rclvjluas. 

If  now  we  pass  to  the  second  of  the  great 
Chinese  systems — the  creed  of  Lao-tze — we  shall 
find  that  the  national  reliojion  has  acrain  failed  to 
realise  itself  by  seeldng  from  a  primitive  age  what 
is  not  to  be  found  tliere.  The  doctrine  of  Lao-tze 
is  in  the  abstract  a  very  lofty  one,  more  lofty  than 
tliat  of  Confucius.  It  proposes  to  usher  the  human 
soul  into  peace  by  the  destruction  of  self-conscious- 
ness, and  in  this  respect  it  bears  a  striking  resem- 
blance to  the  oreat  moral  tenet  of  Christianitv. 
Indeed,  Lao-tze  is  credited  with  having  uttered  a 
maxim  similar  to  that  of  Christ  in  the  declaration 
that  the  least  shall  be  greatest.  Yet  just  as  Con- 
fucianism, in  its  effort  after  a  kingdom  of  heaven, 
has  failed  where  Christianity  has  succeeded,  so  the 
doctrine  of  Lao-tze,  in  its  effort  after  the  destruction 
of  self-consciousness,  has  also  failed  where  Christi- 
anity has  succeeded.  That  it  has  failed  is  a  matter 
of  historical  certainty ;  the  Chinaman  is  of  all  men 
tlie  least  typical  of  self-sacrifice.  The  question  is, 
^Yhy?  And  the  answer  is,  Because  Lao-tze,  like 
Confucius,  has  sought  in  a  wrong  quarter  for  the 
realisation  of  his  dream.  He  has  gone  back  to  the 
most  primitive  type.  He  lias  proposed  to  destroy 
self-consciousness  by  reducing  man  to  the  state  of  a 
plant,  by  stemming  the  impulses  of  life  and  impos- 
ing the  conditions  of  an  absolute  stillness.  Christi- 
anity, like  Lao-tze,  has  proclaimed  the  necessity  to 


The  Message  of  China.  91 

salvation  of  an  emptied  self- consciousness,  and  the 
proclamation  has  been  followed  by  a  signal  success. 
But  why  ?  Because  Christianity  has  pointed  out  a 
source  of  self-forgetfulness  exactly  opposite  to  that 
indicated  by  Lao-tze.  Lao-tze  proposes  to  make 
man  unconscious  by  giving  him  less  life ;  Christi- 
anity, by  giving  him  more.  Lao-tze  would  purchase 
individual  peace  by  suppressing  the  emotions  of  the 
lieart ;  Christianity  would  bring  peace  to  the  heart 
by  giving  it  a  new  and  an  additional  emotion.  Lao- 
tze  teaches  that  to  impart  stillness  to  the  spirit,  it 
must  cease  to  be;  Christ  teaches  tliat  it  can  only 
reach  its  stillness  by  being  more  abundantly.  If 
China  would  attain  the  goal  of  Christianity,  it  must 
follow  the  method  of  Christianity;  it  must  press 
forward  after  having  gone  backward.  No  man 
can  attain  spiritual  unconsciousness  by  losing  phy- 
sical consciousness.  Spiritual  unconsciousness  is 
not  death  but  life,  and  it  is  to  be  reached  only  by 
tlie  influx  of  a  larger  life.  If  the  self-life  is  to  be 
extinguished,  it  must  be  not  by  going  in  but  by 
going  cut,  by  extending  itself  into  the  life  of  the 
universe  and  identifying  its  own  interests  with  the 
interests  of  universal  nature.  Such  a  consumma- 
tion can  only  be  reached  in  the  method  opposite 
to  Lao-tze — can  only  be  attained  by  forgetting  the 
things  which  are  behind,  and  pressing  forward  to 
tlie  things  which  are  before.     It  is  by  transcending 


92  Messages  of  the  Old  llelifjlons. 

llie  life  of  tlie  plant,  by  .suipassiuL;-  llie  life  of  the 
animal,  by  leaving  in  the  background  even  the  life 
of  the  primitive  man,  and  by  entering  into  a  life 
which  shall  l)e  in  sympathy  wiili  universal  de- 
velopment, that  humanity  alone  can  hope  to  see 
the  day  when  the  dream  of  tlie  Chinnmnn  can 
be  realised. 


The  Message  of  India  93 


CHAPTER    IV. 

THE     MESSAGE     OF     INDIA. 

The  message  of  India  !  The  expression  seems  almost 
self-contradictory.  If  there  is  one  thing  which  India 
does  not  suggest,  it  is  the  proclamation  of  a  single 
message.  It  seems  to  exhibit  rather  a  clash  of 
opposing  voices  striving  for  the  mastery  in  the 
temple  of  truth.  It  has  been  said  that  the  soil  of 
Palestine  unites  within  its  compass  the  specimens  of 
every  kind  of  plant.  It  may  be  said,  with  still  more 
accuracy,  that  the  soil  of  India  unites  within  its 
compass  the  specimens  of  every  kind  of  soul.  There 
is  not  a  phase  of  religious  thought  which  is  not  in- 
tensely represented  here ;  there  is  not  an  aspect  of 
philosophic  speculation  which  does  not  find  here  a 
congenial  home.  Here  dwell  the  worshippers  of 
tradition — the  men  who  place  their  reverence  in 
the  outward  letter  of  Scripture.  Here  repose  the 
mystics — the  men  who  seek  to  lose  themselves  in  a 
light  inaccessible  and  full  of  glory.  Here  rest  the 
followers  of  human  reason — tlie  men  who  claim  to 


94  Mcssarjes  of  the  Old  lidigions. 

take  Llieir  sole  guidance  from  experience.  Here  live 
the  materialists — the  men  who  in  the  elements  of 
sense  would  recognise  the  origin  of  all  things.  Here 
are  the  pioneers  of  reconciliation  —  the  men  who 
would  find  a  place  where  matter  and  spirit  could 
dwell  side  by  side.  Here,  finally,  are  those  in  search 
of  a  personal  divine  love — the  men  who  look  neither 
to  tradition,  nor  abstract  mysticism,  nor  rationalism, 
nor  materialism,  nor  even  to  an  attempt  at  the 
reconciliation  of  all,  but  simply  and  solely  to  an 
unveilinii-  of  that  face  of  God  in  whose  vision  and 
fruition  the  human  spirit  may  find  communion.^ 

Nor,  if  we  turn  from  the  inward  to  the  outward 
life  of  the  people,  are  we  less  impressed  with  the 
variety  in  their  types  and  characters.  The  moment 
we  have  decided  to  assign  a  special  quality  to  the 
Indian  race,  there  starts  up  an  exception  to  the  rule 
so  gigantic  and  so  prominent  as  almost  to  nullify 
it.  When  we  look  on  one  side  we  say,  "  This  is  a 
nation  of  ascetics — of  men  who  have  abandoned  all 
interest  in  the  world  and  its  concerns ; "  presently 
we  aie  confronted,  on  the  very  surface  of  her  earliest 
religious  book,  with  the  spectacle  of  a  people  in  fu.U 
employment  and  enjoyment  of  most  of  the  arts  of 

^  Those  tendencies  respectively  indicate  the  names  of  the  six 
Indian  schools — Minjansa,  Yedanta,  Xyaya,  Vaiseshika,  Sankhya, 
Yoga.  The  most  interesting  Western  account  I  know  is  Victor 
Cousin,  *  Cours  de  I'Histoire  de  la  Philosophic,'  1827,  vol.  i.  Also 
see  Professor  Monier  WilUams?'  '  Indian  Wisdom,'  pp.  48-154. 


The  Message  of  India.  95 

life.^  When  we  turn  in  one  direction  we  are  im- 
pressed with  the  belief  tliat  we  are  in  a  land  of 
dreamers ;  yet  no  nation  in  the  world  has  ever  ex- 
hibited such  a  one  -  sided  tendency  towards  the 
practical,  as  appears  in  Buddhism.  When  we  keep 
our  eye  on  a  single  point  we  are  impelled  to  say, 
•''  This  is  a  religion  of  despair."  And  yet  when  we 
turn  to  the  earliest  records — to  the  very  fountain- 
head  of  the  Indian  faith — our  judgment  is  immedi- 
ately reversed.  Here,  as  we  shall  see  in  the  sequel, 
all  is  hope ;  pessimism  has  no  place  within  its 
borders,  and  everything  is  gilded  by  the  morning 
sun.  Amid  such  varieties  of  aspect  and  thought, 
one  is  tempted  to  ask  if  there  is  any  principle  of 
unity  at  all.  Is  it  possible,  in  any  sense,  to  regard 
these  contrary  manifestations  as  parts  of  a  single 
whole  ?  Is  it  possible  to  view  such  different  pro- 
ducts of  the  human  mind  as  in  reality  the  produce 
of  one  soil  ?  Have  we  any  right,  in  short,  to  speak 
of  the  "  religion  of  India  "  ?  Has  India  one  message 
to  the  world  ?  Is  there  anywhere  a  connecting  cord 
between  her  diverging  faiths  ?  Is  there  to  be  found, 
amid  the  apparent  dissonance  of  her  tendencies  and 
her  systems,  one  central,  one  comprehensive  idea, 
which  binds  together  her  seeming  elements  of  con- 
flict, and  blends  her  diverse  colours  in  a  rainbow's 
form  ? 

^  See  Wilson's  'Rigveda,'  vol.  i.,  re-edited  by  F.  E.  Hall,  vols,  ii., 
iii.,  iv.,  edited  by  E.  B.  Cowell.     London  :  1850-1866. 


96  Messages  of  the  Old  Religions. 

I  believe  that  there  is.  I  think  it  will  be  found 
that  the  different  phases  of  Indian  thought  are  sus- 
ceptible of  union  in  one  great  idea,  and  that  in  this 
union  lies  her  message  to  the  world.  That  idea  is 
human  life.  The  message  of  India  is  tlie  proclama- 
tion of  the  pilgrim's  progress — the  earliest  announce- 
ment of  the  stages  of  that  journey  which  has  since 
been  traversed  by  myriads  of  souls.  Here,  for  the 
first  time  in  history,  we  have  a  description  of  man's 
sjiiritual  road — a  description  of  the  path  over  which 
the  religious  life  is  bound  to  travel  if  it  would  be 
a  complete  and  rounded  life.  One  corner  of  the 
earth  is,  as  it  were,  selected  to  be  a  mirror  and  a 
miniature  of  the  normal  experience  of  each  in- 
dividual soul,  and  we  are  permitted  to  see  within 
the  compass  of  a  single  nation  that  process  of 
religious  evolution  which  has  been  the  rule  for  all 
nations  and  for  all  men. 

What,  then,  are  the  stages  of  the  spiritual  life  ? 
It  is  a  question  of  individual  experience.  It  re- 
quires for  its  answer  no  consultation  of  books  or 
authorities ;  one  has  only  to  look  witliin.  The  edu 
cation  of  every  completed  life  has  passed  through 
three  stages.  I  Tlie  opening  or  initial  stage  is  one  of 
hope^  Its  peculiarity  consists  in  the  fact  that  the 
spectator  of  life  underrates  its  difficulties.  The  first 
impression  of  the  youth  in  gazing  upon  tliis  world 
is  not,  as  we  should  expect,  an  impression  of  fear. 
He  looks  upon  surrounding  things  with  an  eye  al- 


The  Mcssaije  uf  India.  97 

most  of  patronage.  He  is  impressed  with  a  sense 
of  the  world's  comparative  smalhiess — of  its  small- 
ness  in  comparison  with  his  own  mighty  power.  He 
feels  himself  to  be  perfectly  adequate,  to  be  more 
than  adequate,  to  the  task  before  him.  The  goal 
towards  which  he  is  going  shines  with  an  illusory 
clearness ;  the  sense  of  distance  is  lost,  and  to- 
morrow is  already  recognised  as  a  portion  of  to-day. 
By -and -by  there  comes  a  change.  The  relative 
aspect  of  the  world  to  himself  is  transformed ;  it 
becomes  large  and  he  becomes  small.  He  begins 
to  aw\ake  to  the  conviction  that  his  first  view  of  life 
was  an  illusion.  He  finds  that  what  he  had  ima- 
gined to  be  only  a  mole-hill  has  become  a  mountain. 
The  waters  which  in  fancy  he  had  held  in  the  hollow 
of  his  hand  expand  into  the  dimensions  of  a  vast 
ocean ;  the  isles  which  in  imagination  he  had  taken 
up  as  a  very  little  thing  are  found  to  be  separated 
from  each  other  by  almost  interminable  tracts  of 
sea.  Originally  his  entire  liope  had  rested  in  the 
realisation  of  liis  worldly  dream  ;  liis  only  object 
now  is  to  awake  from  that  dream.  '<ajTlie  present^ 
system  is  illusory;  if  he  would  find  reality,  he  must 
rise  above  that  svstem  into  a  lio'ht  and  a  life  which 

u  O 

are  now  inaccessible.  His  daily  course  becomes  a 
straining  after  the  invisible,  his  daily  occupation  a 
search  for  things  as  yet  not  seen.  The  prize  of 
peace  lies  for  him  behind  the  veil,  and  the  more 
distant  is   the  object  from  the  day   and  hour,  the 

a 


98  Messages  of  flte  Old  Beligions. 

more  surely  it  becomes  the  hope  of  his  rest.  At  last 
this  second  stage  also  passes  away,  and  a  tliird  and 
final  scene  appears.  Tlie  world,  as  a  world,  still 
seems  an  object  of  illusion ;  but  it  is  no  longer  to 
the  future  that  he  looks  for  redemption  from  it. 
Instead  of  straining  his  eyes  into  the  invisible,  he 
begins  to  centre  his  gaze  upon  one  corner — human- 
ity. Instead  of  looking  for  peace  to  the  advent  of  a 
new  order  of  things,  he  begins  to  look  for  it  here 
and  now.  He  still  believes  that  emancipation  from 
care  can  only  be  reached  by  death ;  but  he  finds 
that  death  can  itself  be  reached  without  leaving  tlie 
world.  He  finds  that  it  is  possible  to  lose  himself  in 
the  thought  of  others,  to  surrender  his  own  person- 
ality by  entering  into  the  personality  of  his  brother- 
man.  He  finds  that  he  can  get  above  the  earth 
without  going  out  of  it,  that  he  can  be  redeemed 
from  the  illusions  of  sense  and  time  by  being  re- 
deemed from  the  thought  of  self.  He  realises,  in 
short,  the  truth  that  loss  of  life  comes  from  loviuLf 
it,  and  that  the  burden  of  individual  care  drops 
from  the  arms  of  him  who  has  entered  into  the  life 
of  humanity. 

Such  in  its  completeness  is  the  rhythm  of  all 
human  life.  It  has  been  the  message  of  India  to 
foretell  and  foreshadow  this  rhythm.  On  a  large 
national  scale  she  represents  to  us  for  the  first  time 
these  successive  phases  of  the  life  of  man.  Let  us 
unfold  them  one  by  one.      Let  us   begin  with  the 


TJie  Message  of  India,  99 

earliest  phase  known  to  us  of  Indian  history.  It 
is  that  which  appears  in  the  Mantras  ^  or  songs 
of  her  first  sacred  book — the  '  Eig  -  Yeda.'  It  is 
distinctively  an  ag^e  of  hope.  There  is  not  a  trace 
of  pessimism  nor  a  note  of  despair.  The  worshipper 
looks  out  upon  this  world  with  the  eye  and  the 
heart  of  a  child.  He  sees  in  it  a  theatre  made  for 
himself,  and  exactly  suited  to  the  part  he  is  to 
play.  He  is. altogether  unappalled  by  the  majesty 
of  the  surrounding  scenery — although  it  is  the  same 
scenery  which  afterwards  appals  him.  The  objects 
before  wliich  lie  is  in  after-years  to  tremble  are  at 
the  beginning  the  sources  of  his  freedom  and  his 
power.  He  looks  up  to  the  forces  of  nature  and 
worships  them,  but  he  worships  them  rather  as 
allies  tlian  as  despots.  He  makes  them  the  object 
of  his  prayers,  but  his  prayers  themselves  are  acts 
of  merchandise.  He  deals  with  the  powers  of  na- 
ture as  a  man  in  business  deals  with  his  brother- 
craftsman.  He  offers  them  his  adoration,  and  he 
expects  in  return  their  sustenance.  He  gives  them 
his  homage  in  order  that  he  may  receive  from  them 
those  balmy  influences  of  wind  and  weather  which 
make  life  go  smooth.  His  religious  sacrifices  are 
from  beciinninsf  to   end   a  commercial  transaction ; 

^  As  I  wish  to  avoid  all  technical  details,  I  refer  for  the  meaning 
of  this  word  to  Colebrooke,  'Miscellaneous  Essays,'  i.  p.  308  ;  Max 
Mliller,  'Ancient  Sanskrit  Literature,'  p.  343  ;  and  Goldstiicker's 
'  Panini,'  p.  69. 


lUU  Messages  of  the  Old  Religions. 

they  are  not  the  emptying  uf  himself  bnt  the 
lading  of  his  ship ;  he  gives  something  that  he  may 
aet  more.      All   this  indicates   an   over-estimate   of 

o 

his  own  .powers,  an  under-estimate  of  the  powers  of 
nature.  It  indicates  that  at  this  stage  he  is  a 
totally  different  man  from  what  he  was  afterwards 
to  become.  So  far  from  shrinking  before  the  uni- 
verse, he  is  not  even  adequately  impressed  with  its 
greatness :  so  far  from  feelin^^  his  own  nothinf]jness, 
he  has  an  overweening  sense  of  his  necessity  to 
the  Q,ods.^  He  stands  like  Jacob  under  the  stars 
of  heaven  and  strikes  a  bargain  for  his  own  profit, 
promises  his  piety  and  his  offerings  if  he  shall  have 
bread  to  eat  and  raiment  to  put  on. 

I  have  said  that  at  this  stage  the  Indian  worships 
the  powers  of  nature.  I  do  not  mean  that  he  wor- 
ships them  as  powers  of  nature.  He  looks  up  to 
the  dawn,  to  the  meridian,  to  the  setting,  but  he 
sees  in  them  more  than  the  eye  sees.  They  are 
to  him  at  this  stage  unconsciously  what  at  an  after- 
stage  they  became  consciously — the  forms  of  divine 
incarnations,  the  respective  embodiments  of  distinct 
celestial  beings.  These  natural  powers,  indeed,  are 
nowhere  equally  worshipped  at  one  time ;  each  has 
its  own  day,  each  has  its  season  for  empire.     Can 


we  determine   the   order  of    their  separate  reigns 


1  The  .spirit  of  Indian  mythology  is  described  by  F.  vou  Schlegel 
as  one  of  boundless  enthusiasm  (Philosophy  of  History,  p.  154. 
Lend.,  1847). 


The  Message  of  India.  101 

Can  we  tell  which  of  them  took  the  precedence  and 
which  followed  ?  Historically  we  cannot  do  so,  for 
the  simple  reason  that  India  has  no  history ;  her 
past,  present,  and  future  are  all  represented  on  a 
single  chart,  and  we  are  called  to  determine  their 
sequence  on  other  grounds  than  testimony.  These 
grounds  must  be  internal.  In  the  absence  of  his- 
torical annals,  we  are  driven  luithin  ourselves  to 
contemplate  the  order  of  human  thought.  But 
when  we  enter  into  this  region,  it  seems  to  me 
that  we  begin  to  get  light  even  on  tlie  path  of 
history.  If  we  take  a  simple  survey  of  the  Indian 
chart,  and  consider  only  the  natural  and  normal 
movements  of  the  universal  human  mind,  I  think 
we  shall  arrive  at  a  tolerably  fair  and  an  approxi- 
mately accurate  reckoning  of  the  sequence  and  ar- 
rangement of  those  steps  by  which  the  spirit  of 
that  great  nation  has  climbed  to  its  culminating 
worship. 

I  shall  illustrate  my  meaning  by  comparison  with 
a  very  early  document,  as  old  as  many  of  the 
Vedas,  and  better  known  to  the  West  than  any  of 
them  —  the  first  chapter  of  the  Book  of  Genesis. 
Of  course  no  one  will  imagine  that  I  think  there 
is  any  connection  between  them  except  that  con- 
nection of  human  nature  which  it  is  my  aim  to 
establish.  But  what  I  wish  to  remark  is  this.  The 
objects  of  creation  selected  in  the  first  chapter  of 
Genesis  are  in  a  very  peculiar  sense  identical  with 


102  Messages  of  the  Old  Religions. 

those  objects  which  are  recognised  in  the  Vedas  as 
worthy  of  religious  reverence.  Now,  in  the  Book 
of  Genesis,  these  objects  are  presented  to  the  view 
not  collectively  but  seriatim.  They  are  made  to 
pass  before  us  in  a  particular  order.  It  has  always 
seemed  to  me  that  it  is  not  an  order  of  creation, 
but  an  order  of  observation.  I  think  the  writer 
had  in  liis  view,  not  the  sequence  of  God's  working, 
but  the  sequence  of  man's  perception.  The  six 
days  of  creation  to  my  mind  are  meant  to  unfold 
those  successive  steps  by  wliich  the  eye  of  childhood 
rises  to  the  appreciation  of  the  visil^le  universe,  h  If 
this  be  the  meaning,  it  would  throw  some  light  upon 
the  sequence  of  the  corresponding  objects  in  the 
Vedas ;  for  it  would  show  that  at  a  very  early  date 
such  a  mode  of  thought  was  native  to  the  Eastern 
mind.  But  whether  it  be  or  be  not  a  true  exegesis, 
it  is  certainly  a  true  delineation.  It  is  a  fact  of 
experience  that  the  child  does  arrive  at  the  full 
conception  of  nature  by  a  process  very  similar  to 
that  which  is  indicated  in  the  order  observed  by 
the  six  days'  creation.  Let  us  look  for  a  moment 
at  that  sequence. 

When  the  infant  opens  its  eyes  upon  this  won- 
drous world,  the  first  object  which  awakens  its 
wonder  is  light.  Light  is  to  every  individual  man 
the  ''offspring  of  heaven  first-born."  It  is  the 
earliest  object  of  perception  which  meets  his  gaze. 
I  do  not  say  it  is  his   earliest  sense   of  conscious- 


The  Message  of  India.  103 

ness  ;  that  probably  begins  with  inward  pain.  But 
it  is  the  first  thing  which  takes  the  child  out  of 
himself,  which  tells  him  that  there  is  another  world 
besides  his  own  soul.  You  will  observe,  this  earliest 
outward  sensation  is  light  itself,  pure  and  simple. 
It  is  not  yet  light  involving  the  idea  of  space. 
Everything  at  first  is  touching  the  eye ;  there  is 
no  sense  of  distance ;  there  is  nothing  but  glitter, 
and  the  glitter  is  not  recognised  as  anything  separate 
from  the  sight.  This  higher  recognition  only  comes 
with  the  second  day.  AVhen  the  child  puts  forth 
its  hand  to  catch  the  light  and  finds  that  it  eludes 
its  grasp,  it  awakens  for  the  first  time  to  the  sense 
of  distance.^ Light  ceases  to  be  a  mere  glitter;  it 
becomes  /a  firmament  —  a  brilliant  and  boundless 
expanse  —  overarching  all  things.  As  yet,  these 
thiuGfS  which  it  overarches  are  undiscerned ;  the 
perception  of  the  diffused  light  precedes  the  per- 
ception either  of  its  own  individual  forms  or  of  any 
other  forms.  But  with  the  third  day  there  comes 
this  vision  of  individual  things.  There  opens  for 
the  child  a  season  in  which  the^Sry  land  appears 
with  its  variegated  colours  of  vegetation,  its  fruits 
and  flowers  and  trees.  Everything  begins  to  be 
seen  "  after  its  kind  " — in  its  distinction  from  every 
other  thing;  and  the  eye  which  has  been  at  first 
delighted  only  with  the  heavens,  begins  to  revel  in 
the  growing  forms  of  earth.  Then  there  breaks 
upon  the  mind  a  new  perception.     The  child  wakens 


104  Messages  of  the  Old  lidicjions. 

C 

to  the  recognition  that  there  is  n  pny^T^pptjon  Viptwoon 
the  earth  and  the  heavens,  tliat  th^  suil,  rules  tlie 
day  and  tlie  moon  rules  the  night.  It  is  at  this 
stage  that  it  receives  its  impressions  of  the  dread 
of  physical  darkness.  That  children  dread  the  dark 
is  proverbial ;  yet  it  is  certainly  not  a  primitive 
instinct — it  is  the  result  of  reflection.  It  can  only 
be  reached  when  darkness  ceases  to  be  a  mere  fact 
and  becomes  a  symbol — the  symbol  of  some  guiding 
hand  ^Yithdrawn.  Then  for  the  first  time  begins  to 
dawn  the  interest  in  life  as  distinguished  from  the 
interest  in  form.  And  the  earliest  interest  in  life 
centres  in  the  animar  world.  The  child  seeks  the 
first  mirror  of  itself  not  in  the  face  of  its  brother- 
child,  but  in  the  impulses  and  the  movements  of 
the  lower  creation ;  the  horse  and  the  dog  excite 
its  wonder  ere  ever  it  has  learned  to  wonder  at  its 
own  soul.  The  wonder  at  its  own_spul  is  the  final 
stage  of  all ;  it  is  the  sixth  day.  AVitli  the  dawn- 
ing of  this  day  it  begins  to  awaken  into  the  sense 
of  a  human  love,  looks  into  a  mother's  face,  and 
experiences  that  earliest  impression  of  trust  in  an- 
other which  is  the  portal  into  the  Sabbath  of  rest. 

Such  is  the  order  of  man's  childhood,  and  we  have 
seen  that  it  corresponds  to  the  order  of  the  Hebrew 
visions  of  creation.  If  we  apply  it  to  the  Pantheon 
of  India,  we  shall  find  that  it  will  furnish  at  least  a 
possible  theory  of  the  relative  times  of  her  different 
gods.      Let  us  try  to  figure  the   process  by  which 


The  Message  of  India.  105 

the  Indian  filled  up  that  Pantheon.  The  Hindu 
child,  like  the  Hebrew  child,  opened  his  eyes  on 
the  world  of  nature,  and  the  firs.t  object  whicli  he 
saw  was  Light ;  he  called  it  Agni^  It  was  as  yet 
to  him  what  it  is  at  first  to'every  child — only  a 
thing  which  glitters.  It  was  discerned  simply  as 
a  part  of  the  eye,  and  was  unconnected  with  any 
sense  of  distance.  Tlie  Indian  child,  like  all  other 
children,  would  first  learn  its  distance  by  the  abor- 
tive effort  to  touch  it.  When  it  found  the  light 
to  be  something  which  eluded  its  grasp,  it  would 
awaken  into  its  second  stage  of  worshi}3.  That 
second  stage  was  the  adoration  of  Aditi  —  the 
boundless  firmament.  Agni  had  been  only  the 
glittering  light ;  Aditi  was  the  light  enthroned  in 
the  heavens,  the  light  diffused  through  immensity. 
Then  to  the  Indian,  as  to  the  Jew,  there  came  a 
third  stage ;  the  dry  land  appeared.  The  eye  began 
to  rest  upon  solid  masses,  and  to  transfer  its  rever- 
ence from  the  things  of  heaven  to  the  things  of 
earth.  Singularly  enough,  the  first  earthly  thing 
which  received  its  reverence  was  plant-life.  It  is 
at  the  stage  subsequent  to  the  worship  of  the 
heavens  that  we  find  the  Indian  adoring  the  juice 
of  a  vegetable  product  under  the  name  of  Soma.^ 
Then  the  fourth  day  breaks.     The  Indian  has  adored 

^  This  juice  is  offered  up  as  a  libation,  and  the  offering  indicates 
a  glimmering  sense  of  something  in  man  which  needs  expiation, 
(Rig- Veda,   Langlois'  edition,  i.   38,) 


106  Messages  of  the  Old  neliffions. 

heaven  and  he  has  adored  earth  ;  he  is  now  to  adore 
the  meeting  of  heaven  and  earth.  It  is  here  that 
there  come  into  view  those  forms  and  plienomena 
of  nature  which  mark  the  transition  from  the 
celestial  into  the  mundane.  Here  we  find  the 
worsiiip  of  what  Herbert  calls 

"  The  bridal  of  the  eartli  and  sky;" 

and  the  union  of  heaven  and  earth  is  celebrated 
under  the  names  of  Dyaus  and  Prithivi.  Here,  in 
the  united  adoration  of  Varuna  and  j\Iitra,  we  have 
a  reverential  recognition  of  the  truth  that  the 
evenini^'  and  the  mornino;  make  for  the  world  one 
day.  Here  we  have  the  reverence  for  things  which 
in  themselves  seem  slight  and  insignificant,  but 
which  receive  a  religious  value  as  links  between 
the  heavenly  and  the  earthly.  We  have  the  wor- 
ship of  Ushas  or  the  dawn — the  point  where  the 
golden  sky  begins  to  touch  the  hills.  We  have 
the  worship  of  the  Suryas — or  beams  which  the 
sun  bestows  on  the  world.  We  have  the  worship 
of  Indra  —  the  heat  which  breaks  the  cloud  and 
sends  rain.  We  have  the  worsiiip  of  the  Maruts 
— those  winds  which  bear  to  earth  the  messages  of 
heaven.  Finally,  we  have  the  worship  of  Pu.shan 
— the  sun  as  the  guide  of  humanity,  the  light,  no 
longer  merely  in  itself  nor  merely  in  its  immensity, 
but  in  its  journey  round  the  world  to  fulfil  the 
course  of  time, 


The  Message  of  India.  107 

The  fifth  morning  breaks,  and  with  it  there  comes 
a  higher  worship  still.  There  rises  a  deeper  interest 
in  life.  Hitherto  the  plant  alone  has  been  recog- 
nised as  a  legitimate  offering  to  heaven  ;  but  with 
this  fifth  morning  we  begin  to  witness  the  pheno- 
menon of  animal  sacrifice.^  The  gods  begin  to  be 
adored  under  an  unwonted  form.  As  yet  the  Indian 
has  only  bowed  before  the  powers  of  nature ;  here 
he  is  seen  to  bow  before  the  majesty  of  life.  His 
sense  of  the  dignity  of  life  takes  the  form  of  the 
worship  of  Brahmanaspati — the  name  given  to  a 
priest  in  the  act  of  sacrifice.  The  priest  is  not 
worshipped  as  a  man,  nor  in  himself :  in  his  private 
moments  he  may  be  esteemed  a  very  poor  creature ; 
but  in  the  act  of  sacrifice  he  is  for  the  moment 
sublime.  And  the  sublimity  is  clearly  a  reflection 
from  the  thing  which  he  offers;  it  is  the  glory  of 
his  gift  which  to  the  mind  of  the  Indian  makes  the 
priest  worthy  of  reverence.  The  deification  of  the 
Brahmanaspati  indicates  beyond  all  doubt  that  the 
life  of  the  animal  creation  is  becoming  to  him  an 
object  of  increasing  interest.  To  the  Indian,  as  to 
the  Jew,  one  other  sta^e  remains :  it  is  the  recooni- 
tion  of  the  dignity  of  man.  The  sixth  morning  is 
the  grandest  of  all ;  it  is  the  adoration  of  A^nan — 

1  The  rules  for  sacrifice  are  contained  in  those  parts  of  the  Vedas 
called  Brahmaunas  —  evidently  later  than  the  earliest  ilantras. 
For  the  meaning  of  the  word  see  J.  ]\Iuir,  in  '  Journal  of  Asiatic 
Society'  for  1864,  and  introduction  to  M.  Haug's  edition  of  the 
'  Aitaruya  Brahman  a,'  i.  4. 


108  Messages  of  the  Old  Religions. 

tlie  self  or  soul.  Here  the  Indian  has  reached  a 
stage  immeasurably  beyond  all  the  others.  He  had 
worshipped  the  heavens  in  the  forms  of  the  light 
and  the  firmament.  He  had  worshipped  the  plant 
in  the  form  of  the  Soma.  He  had  worshipped  the 
animal-sacrifice  in  the  form  of  the  Brahmanaspati. 
But  here  he  has  taken  a  step  beyond  the  firmament, 
beyond  the  plant,  beyond  the  animal ;  he  has  recog- 
nised the  dignity  of  mind.  He  has  uncovered  his 
head  to  a  new  and  higher  principle — the  principle 
of  mental  life.  He  has  entered  within  the  gates 
of  a  temple  loftier  and  broader  than  the  dome  of 
the  starry  heavens,  and  has  bowed  before  the  ideal 
of  the  spirit  of  man. 

Such  appears  to  me  to  be  at  least  a  possible 
scheme  on  which  to  explain  the  order  of  the  Indian 
Pantheon.  It  will  doubtless  be  esteemed  far-fetched 
and  fanciful.  Far-fetched  it  is  not,  if  it  be  derived 
from  so  near  a  distance  as  human  experience.  Fanci- 
ful it  certainly  is;  but  the  early  system  of  the  Indian 
I'antheon  is  itself  fanciful,  and  demands  fancy  to 
account  for  it.  It  is  the  product  of  poetry  and 
imagination,  and  by  poetry  and  imagination  must  it 
be  explained.  Of  course  I  do  not  mean  to  imply 
that  the  predominance  of  one  object  of  worship 
involved  the  exclusion  of  the  others,  nor  that  there 
ever  was  a  time  in  which  one  object  was  simul- 
taneously predominant  to  all  minds.  It  depended 
entirely  upon  that  state   of  development  at  which 


The  Message  of  India.  109 

the  indi^'idual  might  have  arrived  ;  one  man  might 
be  worshipping  Agni,  while  another  was  adoring 
Aditi.  I  have  merely  wished  to  express  the  fact 
that,  if  we  were  permitted  to  trace  the  develop- 
ment of  any  one  complete  Indian  life,  we  w^onld 
find  it  to  portray  those  stages  which  are  described 
on  the  opening  page  of  the  Hebrew  records,  and 
to  be  in  all  probability  in  either  case  connected 
with  a  natural  law  of  human  evolution. 

But  the  main  point  on  which  I  wish  to  insist  in 
the  exhibition  of  this  opening  phase  of  Indian  re- 
ligion, is  its  pre-eminent  and  almost  unqualitied 
hopefulness.  There  is  not  a  trace  of  its  future  self, 
not  a  hint  of  the  coming  despair.  The  Indian,  like 
the  Hebrew  seer,  looks  upon  a  world  as  yet  unstained 
by  a  fall,  a  world  whose  prevailing  note  is  joy,  and 
which  basks  under  the  blessing  of  heaven.  If  the 
Hebrew  evinces  this  by  the  constant  averment,  "  God 
saw  that  it  was  good,"  the  Indian  not  less  strongly 
reveals  it  by  distributing  successively  his  tributes  of 
reverence  over  every  object  of  creation.  And  not 
the  least  remarkable  feature  of  his  worship  is  the 
fact  that  it  includes  even  those  objects  of  nature 
which  might  be  supposed  to  suggest  an  opposite 
attitude.  He  is  not  afraid  to  take  into  his  Pantheon 
the  stormy  winds.  To  the  natural  eye  the  winds 
suggest  rather  an  irregularity  than  a  harmony  with 
the  law  of  nature.  They  convey  to  the  untutored 
mind  the  idea  of  a  wilfulness  which  seeks  to  revolt 


110  Messages  of  the  Old  lieliyions. 

from  the  established  order,  and  to  set  up  a  kingdom 
of  its  own.  Tlie  early  Indian  has  an  untutored  mind, 
hut  lie  lias  not  fallen  into  this  error.  He  has  re- 
fused to  recognise  in  the  seeming  waywardness  of 
the  winds  anything  inconsistent  with  the  universal 
harmony,  and  has  insisted  on  giving  them  a  place 
in  the  great  temple  of  his  worship.  Nor  has  he 
scrupled  to  include  the  rains  also.  To  an  untutored 
eye  the  rain  is  a  blot  on  the  beautiful ;  for  the  time 
being  it  actually  dims  the  face  of  the  landscape, 
and  might  i)e  supposed  to  be  a  force  with  a  counter- 
acting and  impeding  aim.  Yet  the  primitive  Indian 
has  seen  deeper.  He  has  claimed  for  the  rain  an 
agency  harmonious  with  the  beneficence  of  all 
nature,  and  he  has  assigned  a  special  divine  work 
to  that  powxr  which  causes  it  to  fall.  All  this  in  a 
primitive  mind  not  guided  by  scientific  knowdedge 
is  clearly  due  to  an  optimistic  tendency.  It  results, 
and  only  can  result,  from  a  native  and  original  hope- 
fulness which  starts  upon  the  path  of  life  with  the 
foregone  conclusion  that  all  is  well.  It  is  true  that 
here,  as  elsewhere,  we  have  rites  of  sacrifice,  and  that 
wherever  sacrifice  exists  there  exists  an  evidence  of 
not  absolutely  unclouded  sunshine.  Yet  even  the 
sacrifices  of  the  Indian  bear  witness  to  the  optimism 
of  his  early  faith  ;  for  the  object  which  he  offers 
is  itself  deified,  and  the  priest  who  surrenders  it  is 
himself  invested  with  the  attributes  of  divinity. 
The  very  hour  of  humiliation  has  been  lifted  into 


The  Message  of  India.  Ill 

the  Hindu  Pantheon,  and  tlie  act  which  naturally 
marks  the  sense  of  human  degradation  has  been 
transformed  by  this  early  worship  into  an  element 
of  man's  i^reatness. 

The  trutli  is,  it  would  almost  seem  as  if  tlie  first 
mission  of  India  to  the  world  was  to  proclaim  the 
original  hopefulness  of  the  message  of  life.  AVith 
all  those  geographical  surroundings  which  naturally 
foster  gloom,  and  which  ultimately  did  foster  gloom, 
the  spirit  of  this  race  was  at  the  outset  light  and 
airy,  incapable  of  being  depressed,  and  unable  to  be 
sombre.  It  became  in  this  a  revelation  to  the  world 
of  what  the  daw^n  of  life  by  nature  is,  and  by  nature 
ought  to  be.  Indeed,  the  conception  of  a  pessimistic 
child  is  in  itself  a  contradiction  in  terms.  Child- 
hood is  the  season  of  outlook,  and  where  childhood 
is  unimpeded  the  outlook  is  ever  one  of  brightness. 
I  say,  where  childhood  is  unimpeded.  There  is  such 
a  thing  as  a  melancholy  childhood ;  but  where  it 
exists  it  is  always  the  result  of  some  hereditary 
influence.  India  betrays  no  such  influence;  its 
morning  is  without  clouds.  If  there  is  anything 
which  would  prompt  me  to  assign  to  this  faith 
an  earlier  origin  than  to  others,  it  is  just  this 
original  cloudlessness,  this  absence  from  the  morning 
sky  of  all  portents  and  of  all  shadows.^"  It  would 
seem  to  indicate  that,  in  a  deeper  sense  than  the 
surrounding  religions,  the  worship  of  India  was  the 
cradle  of  all  worship.^    Nowhere  is  there  so  much 


112  Messages  of  the  Old  Religions. 

freshness,  even  in  the  incipient  stages  of  seemingly 
contemporaneous  faiths.  China,  witli  all  her  hopes 
of  empire,  exhibits  the  traces  of  a  life  worn  out  hy  a 
long  course  of  worldliness.  Persia,  in  spite  of  her 
struggles  and  aspirations — nay,  by  the  very  struggle 
to  realise  her  aspirations — gives  evidence  that  her 
morning  sky  has  long  departed.  Egypt,  by  her 
efforts  from  the  very  outset  to  pierce  behind  the 
veil  of  sense,  bears  testunony  to  the  fact  that 
the  form  of  her  faith  is  a  comparatively  late  one, 
and  one  which  could  only  come  when  the  first  age 
of  life  had  been  found  illusory.  But  India  is  at 
the  beginning  a  spontaneous  child.  She  reveals  in 
every  movement  the  primitive  instincts  of  the  heart. 
She  comes  to  the  sight  of  nature  without  any  trace 
of  a  theory,  without  any  indication  that  she  has 
received  from  others  a  creed  to  promulgate  or  a 
doctrine  to  defend.  She  paints  only  wdiat  she 
sees,  and  she  paints  it  as  if  she  had  seen  it  for  the 
first  time.  There  are  many  things  in  the  Yedas 
which  do  not  suggest  a  primitive  religion;  there 
is  a  knowledge  of  the  arts  which  implies  a  previous 
growth,  and  there  is  a  subtlety  of  speculation  which 
indicates  a  previous  maturing.  But  the  optimism  of 
their  first  aspirings  comes  to  us  as  at  least  one  drop 
from  the  fountain,  and  the  uncloudedness  of  their 
original  view  looks  like  the  reflection  of  a  dawn. 


The  Message  of  India.  llS 


CHAPTER   V. 

THE    SUBJECT    CONTINUED. 

I  HAVE  said  that  the  message  of  Indian  religion 
has  been  the  revehation  of  life.  I  have  pointed 
out  that,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  the  spiritual  life  of 
the  individual  man  is  unfolded  in  three  stasres. 
There  is  a  stage  of  initial  hopefulness,  in  which 
the  ^Yorld  looks  absolutely  cloudless ;  there  is  a 
stage  of  disenchantment,  in  which  the  world  reveals 
nothing  but  clouds,  and  in  which  the  soul's  only 
hope  is  to  rise  beyond  it ;  and  there  is  a  stage 
of  moral  action,  in  which  the  soul  surmounts 
once  more  its  sense  of  care,  not  by  rising  above 
the  world,  but  by  finding  within  the  world  itself  an 
object  transcending  materialism — the  brotherhood  of 
man. 

I  have  in  the  previous  chapter  endeavoured  to 
show  how  the  earliest  manifestation  of  Indian 
religion  has  revealed  the  earliest  of  these  phases 
of  life.  AVe  liave  seen  how  the  first  impressions 
of    the    Hindu    mind    were    almost    unqualifiedly 


114-  Messages  of  the  Old  Eeligions. 

joyful — liow  it  looked  out  upon  the  forms  of  na- 
ture and  saw  in  tliem  only  the  mirror  of  its  own 
freedom.  We  are  now  to  let  the  curtain  fall  upon 
this  opening  scene,  and  when  it  shall  rise  again  we 
shall  be  in  the  presence  of  a  complete  transforma- 
tion. If  the  first  stage  of  Indian  religion  is  a  sense 
of  perfect  freedom,  the  second  is  assuredly  a  sense 
of  entire  bondage.  We  have  no  historical  clue  by 
which  to  interpret  the  change;  the  interpretation 
lies  behind  the  scenes.  We  have  simply  the  succes- 
sive representation  of  two  contrasted  pictures — the 
picture  of  national  hope  and  the  picture  of  national 
despair.  In  the  absence  of  any  outward  clue  we 
are  driven  inward.  In  tlie  silence  of  historical 
annals  we  seek  an  explanation  from  the  voice  of 
human  nature.  We  ask  if  there  is  anything  in  tlie 
constitution  of  the  mind  of  man  which  can  render 
intelligible  this  marked  and  contrasted  transition, 
which  can  explain  the  substitution  of  a  dark  and 
sombre  view  of  the  universe  for  a  view  whose 
characteristic  feature  was  sweetness  and  light  ? 

More  tlian  one  attempt  has  been  made  to  furnish 
such  an  explanation,  and  some  of  the  theories  seem 
to  me  not  wholly  satisfactory.  One  very  popular 
reason  is  the  theory  whose  representative  advocate 
is  perhaps  Mr  Buckle.  It  seeks  to  account  for  the 
general  depression  of  the  Eastern  mind  by  purely 
geographical  influences.  It  tells  us  that^'in  Europe 
.man  has  power  over  nature,  whereas  in  Asia  nature 


The  Message  of  India.  115 

has  power_gvgi_iiiaM.^  It  tells  us  tliat  the  Indian 
has  been  frightened  by  his  vast  mountains,  appalled 
by  his  endless  plains,  dwarfed  by  his  immense  rivers  ; 
that  his  personality  has  been  compelled  to  shrink 
into  insignificance  before  the  majesty  of  a  natural 
creation  exhibited  ever  on  the  largest  scale,  and 
that  his  life  has  trembled  into  nothingness  in  the 
presence  of  material  forces  which  he  is  powerless 
to  control  and  unable  to  comprehend.  Xow,  I  have 
already  admitted  that  these  geographical  influences 
do  exert  a  depressing  influence,  or,  as  I  have  ex- 
pressed it,  they  "naturally  foster  gloom";  but  I 
have  used  that  expression  advisedly,  in  order  to 
guard  against  the  notion  that  they  can  create  gloom. 
When  once  tlie  heart  lias  been  depressed,  an  envi- 
ronment such  as  that  of  India  will  certainly  tend  to 
retain  and  even  to  deepen  its  depression  ;  but  there 
is  nothing  in  such  surroundings  which  can  orijinate 
the  sinking  of  the  heart.  If  a  man  enters  upon  such 
a  scene  with  a  disposition  light  and  buoyant,  he  will 
find  nothing  in  these  elements  to  interfere  with  this 
lightness  and  buoyancy — probably  much  which  shall 
^minister  to  them.  The  vastness  of  the  American 
continent  has  been  made,  in  Longfellow's  "  Evangel- 
ine," to  suggest  to  the  individual  mind  the  idea  of 
melanclioly.  Lut  such  a  suggestion  belongs  not  to 
the  morning  of  American  history  ;  it  has  proceeded 

^  See  Buckle's  '  History  of  English  Civilisation,'  vol.  i.,  introduc- 
tory pages. 


116  Messages  of  the  Old  Religions, 

from  an  age  which  is  already  weighted  with  care 
and  oppressed  with  the  burden  and  heat  of  the  day. 
To  the  original  settlers  in  New  England,  the  vast- 
ness  of  the  Transatlantic  continent  conveyed  a  yery 
different  impression ;  it  stimulated  into  enthusiastic 
hope  the  hearts  of  the  Pilgrim  Fathers.  But  perhaps 
the  most  remarkable  instance  is  that  of  India  her- 
self. We  haye  seen  that  her  morning  was  all  bright- 
ness. Throughout  that  morning,  even  from  the 
dawn,  she  dwelt  in  the  same  enyironment  that  sub- 
sequently eyoked  her  spirit  of  gloom.  She  was  sur- 
rounded by  the  same  gigantic  aspects  of  nature  and 
the  same  vast  scale  of  scenery ;  yet  in  these  hours  of 
morning  she  did  not  shrink  before  the  spectacle,  nor 
feel  small  in  the  presence  of  material  greatness. 
How  shall  we  account  for  this  ?  It  is  true  that 
many  of  her  people  had  originally  been  trans- 
planted from  another  soil ;  shall  we  say  that  her 
early  hopefulness  was  only  the  expenditure  of  that 
former  life,  only  the  survival  of  a  culture  which 
the  c^loom  of  the  new  environment  could  not  at 
once  wear  away  ?  Such  a  theory  is  precluded  by 
the  facts.  There  would  be  some  force  in  it  if  tire 
period  of  India's  youth  had  been  of  short  duration ; 
it  might  then,  indeed,  have  seemed  like  the  expiring 
gleam  of  a  fire  elsewhere  lighted.  But  the  period 
of  India's  youth  is  long,  unwontedly  long  ;  it  must 
be  measured  not  by  years  but  centuries.  The  proof 
lies  in  the  fact  that  her  earliest  books  reveal  a  civi- 


The  Message  of  India.  117 

lisation  that  could  not  have  sprung  up  in  a  night, 
and  an  acquaintance  with  the  arts  of  life  that  de- 
manded a  lengthened  past.  The  power,  therefore, 
which  conferred  this  primitive  brightness  on  the 
Indian  mind  could  not  have  been  a  foreign  power ; 
it  must  have  been  indigenous  to  the  soil.  It  was 
capable  of  subsisting  during  a  very  long  minority  in 
the  midst  of  these  same  geographical  influences 
which  are  supposed  to  have  produced  its  contrary; 
and  the  conclusion  seems  inevitably  to  follow,  that 
the  effect  attributed  to  these  influences  has  been 
due  to  some  otlier  cause. 

The  truth  is,  we  habitually  overrate  the  origina- 
tive influence  of  nature  upon  mind.  Nature  is  both 
a  fountain  and  a  mirror ;  but  it  is  far  more  a  mirror 
than  a  fountain.  It  does  not  give  nearly  so  much 
as  it  gets.  We  talk  in  popular  language  of  receiving 
our  impressions  from  surrounding  scenery ;  in  real- 
ity, we  first  give  our  impressions  to  the  scenery  and 
then  take  them  back  again.  Our  moods  of  mind  are 
rarely  created  by  nature;  they  are  almost  always 
imparted  to  nature  and  restored  to  us  anew.  The 
visible  creation  dances  to  our  piping  and  mourns  to 
our  lamenting ;  it  houghs  when  we  are  joyful,  it 
weeps  when  we  are  sad.  If  the  Indian  enters  upon 
the  scene  with  ideas  of  freedom  in  his  heart,  he 
will  find  these  ideas  mirrored  in  everything  around 
him — expressed  in  the  endless  plains  and  typified 
in  the  gigantic  mountains.      If  the  Indian  should 


118  Messages  of  the  Old  Religions. 

come  to  the  scene  with  a  mind  overwhelmed  by  a 
sense  of  its  own  impotence,  he  will  find  the  impres- 
sion confirmed  by  the  very  same  aspects  of  nature ; 
the  boundless  length  of  the  plain  will  repeat  to  him 
the  contrast  of  his  own  nothingness,  and  the  tower- 
ing strength  of  the  mountain  will  remind  him  of  his 
insignificance  anew. 

We  must  arrive,  then,  at  the  conclusion  that  the 
change  in  the  Indian  mind  from  gay  to  grave  is  not 
to  be  accounted  for  on  geographical  principles.  A 
second  attempt  to  account  for  it  has  been  made  from 
an  opposite  direction.  It  has  been  sought  to  ex- 
plain it  not  from  the  world  without  but  from  the 
world  within.  We  have  been  told  that  the  shrinking 
of  the  Indian  before  the  aspects  of  nature  has  been 
due  to  the  natural  inactivity  of  his  intellect,  to  that 
want  of  mental  energy  which  characterises  the  East 
in  general  and  marks  the  Hindu  race  in  particular. 
Kow,  no  one  would  attempt  to  deny  that  from  a 
Western  point  of  view  the  Indian  intellect  is  dis- 
tinguished by  its  want  of  energy.  But  what  do  we 
mean  by  this  ?  Simply  that  it  is  distinguished  by 
its  absence  from  that  direction  where  in  the  West 
it  is  accustomed  to  blow.  The  manifestations  of 
the  Western  mind  are  energetic  in  ap-ac^ica^  direc- 
tion ;  they  exhibit  themselves  by  their  effects  on  the 
outer  world.  In  India  there  is  not  this  form  of 
energy ;  but  there  is  another  and  a  more  intense 
form.     The  mind  here  does  not  go  out,  but  it  does 


The  Message  of  India.  1  TO 

not  therefore  fall  asleep;  it  goes  in.  It  retires 
within  itself  and  meditates  upon  the  secret  of  its 
own  nature.  We  are  accustomed  to  think  and  speak 
of  the  Indian  mind  as  an  inert  and  sluggish  thing. 
It  is  characteristically  and  emphatically  the  reverse. 
A  man  is  not  necessarily  asleep  because  he  is  not 
outwardly  moving.  It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that 
the  mind  of  the  West,  with  all  its  undoubted  im- 
pulses towards  the  progress  of  humanity,  has  never 
exhibited  such  an  intense  amount  of  intellectual 
force  as  is  to  be  found  in  the  religious  speculations 
of  India.  Nay,  I  will  go  further.  It  is  not  too 
much  to  say  that  the  religious  speculations  of  India 
liave  been  the  cradle  of  all  Western  speculations,  and 
that  wheresoever  the  European  mind  has  risen  into 
heights  of  philosophy,  it  has  done  so  because  the 
Brahman  has  been  its  pioneer  There  is  no  intellec- 
tual problem  of  the  West  which  had  not  its  earliest 
discussion  in  the  East,  and  there  is  no  modern  solu- 
tion of  that  problem  which  will  not  be  found  antici- 
pated in  Eastern  lore.  We  must  emphatically  deny, 
therefore,  that  the  Hindu  mind  is  in  any  sense  dis- 
tinguished by  the  absence  of  force  or  energy .^  If 
I  were  asked  to  mark  its  distinction  from  the 
European    intellect,   I   should    say   that    it   is   the 

*  Even  those  who  admit  that  the  second  period  of  Indian  history- 
is  a  retrogression  from  the  first,  do  not  deny  that  it  exhibits  signs 
of  mental  progress — e.g.,  Ritter,  'History  of  Ancient  Phrlosopliy,' 
i.  94. 


120  Messages  of  the  Old  Religions. 

difference  between  bearing  and  doing.  The  Euro- 
pean energy  is  exerted  in  the  construction  of  new 
masses;  the  Indian  force  is  exhibited  in  the  sup- 
porting of  old  ones.  Tlie  weight  of  this  workl 
presses  upon  the  mind  of  the  Hindu.  His  main 
desire  is  to  shake  it  off,  to  get  free  from  it,  to 
emancipate  his  inner  self  from  the  trammels  of  the 
outer  day;  and  all  the  struggles  of  his  life  are 
directed  towards  this  end.  The  fact  of  such  an 
end  is  the  disproof  of  anything  abject  or  craven 
in  his  intellectual  nature ;  and  the  struggle  by 
which  he  seeks  to  compass  it,  subterranean  and 
unseen  as  it  is,  exhibits  a  larger  amount  of  actual 
power  than  can  be  witnessed  in  all  the  utilitarian 
movements  of  Western  civilisation. 

The  question,  then,  still  remains  unanswered,  How 
are  we  to  account  for  the  change  of  the  Indian  mind 
from  optimism  into  despair?  It  cannot  be  explained 
by  scenery,  it  cannot  be  referred  to  the  inertness  of 
the  understanding ;  is  there  any  other  possible  solu- 
tion ?  There  is ;  but  it  is  one  that  lies  not  in  the 
nature  of  India  but  in  the  nature  of  man.  The 
searchers  after  causes  have,  in  my  opinion,  looked 
too  far  in  advance  for  an  explanation  of  this 
problem.  If  they  had  looked  into  the  glass  of 
human  nature,  they  would  have  found  that  India 
is  here  in  no  sense  peculiar ;  it  simply  exhibits, 
in  very  pronounced  and  Eastern  letters,  the  hand- 
writing on  the  walls  of  all  Immanity.     The  transi- 


Tlie  Message  of  India.  121 

tion  of  the  Indian  mind  from  gay  to  grave  is  itself 
a  revelation  of  the  message  of  life,  an  anticipative 
specimen  of  what  every  developed  man  and  every 
developed  nation  does  and  must  go  through.  "What 
are  the  facts  of  the  case  ?  The  be^inniuGj  of  all  life 
is  a  search  for  individual  happiness.  By  individual 
happiness  I  do  not  mean  personal  happiness ;  a  joy 
which  is  not  personal  is  a  contradiction  in  terms. 
But  the  search  for  an  individual  joy  is  the  pursuit 
of  an  object  with  a  view  to  my  own  advantage,  and 
to  that  alone.  It  is  with  this  pursuit  that  all  life 
begins.  We  start  upon  the  course  of  our  being  witli 
the  firm  conviction  that  each  of  us  is  an  end  to 
himself.  "We  look  upon  the  world  as  made  specially 
for  ourselves,  and  we  expect  with  the  utuiost  con- 
fidence that  everything  around  us  will  minister  to 
our  pleasure.  And  in  every  case  we  experience  a 
bitter  disappointment.  There  are  some  instances 
in  which  the  fortunes  of  life  are  unequally  bestowed  ; 
but  here  the  same  lot  falls  impartially  to  all.  /  There 
is  not  a  man  in  this  w^orld  who  has  not  come  to  the 
conviction  that  his  first  conception  of  existence  was 
a  dream,  who  has  not  arrived  at  the  knowledge  that 
thinGjs  were  not  created  to  minister  to  his  own 
individual  happiness.  And  as  his  own  individual 
happiness  is  at  first  the  only  kind  of  joy  he  knows, 
the  advent  of  this  knowledge  comes  to  him  as  more 
than  a  pain — as  a  despair.  As  the  conviction  breaks 
upon  him  that  the  first  hope  was  a  delusion,  and 


122  Messages  of  the  Old  Rdujions. 

as  the  light  of  a  higher  hope  has  not  yet  dawned, 
the  impression  created  by  the  discovery  must  be 
one  of  blank  pessimism.  It  was  so  with  India.  She 
began  with  the  belief  that  the  universe  existed  for 
tlie  sake  of  the  individual ;  she  reverenced  the 
powers  of  nature  as  ministers  to  the  wants  of  man. 
She  valued  Agni  not  so  much  because  it  was  light 
as  because  it  brought  light  to  some  particular  path 
of  life ;  she  worshipped  Indra  not  so  much  because 
it  was  itself  a  source  of  refreshment,  as  because  it 
sent  rain  at  some  specially  needed  time  to  the  crops 
of  some  special  man.  This  was  her  first  conception 
of  the  value  of  nature,  and  it  proved  a  delusioiL 
She  found  that  whatever  value  Agni  had,  it  was 
not  this  value ;  that  whatever  advantage  lay  in  the 
worship  of  Indra,  it  was  not  this  advantage.  She 
found  that  to  the  individual  man  Agni  often  failed 
to  send  his  light  just  at  the  moment  when  it  was 
wanted ;  that  Indra  often  refused  to  give  tlie  shower 
precisely  at  the  time  and  place  where  it  was  speci- 
ally desired.  And  in  the  breaking  of  that  conviction 
there  happened  to  India  wdiat  befalls  every  man — ■ 
an  aggravated  sense  of  the  illusion  life  has  given. 
Disappointed  in  her  first  expectation,  she,  like  the 
rest  of  mankind,  invested  the  wliole  world  witli  the 
gloom  of  its  transition  moment.  Her  earliest  hope 
had  been  a  dream ;  she  revenged  herself  by  saying 
it  was  all  a  dream.  The  world  in  its  length  and 
breadth  presented  itself  to  her  view  as  a  scene  of 


The  Message  of  India.  123 

vanity  and  vexation  of  spirit,  as  an  agglomeration 
of  vain  shadows,  meaning  nothing  and  tending  no- 
where. It  stood  before  her  as  an  illusion,  a  dream, 
an  assemblage  of  phantasies,  already  detected  as 
impostures,  yet,  by  their  vivid  appearance  of  reality, 
impressing  the  mind  with  a  sense  of  care.  Hence- 
forth the  problem  of  India  became  one  reiterated 
question — how  to  get  free.  How  was  she  to  emanci- 
pate herself  from  those  deluding  shadows  ?  How 
was  she  to  get  rid  of  those  illusory  cares  of  the 
sense  which  clogged  tlie  wings  of  the  spirit  ?  How 
w^as  she  to  be  lifted  from  this  grovelling  in  the  dust 
into  an  atmosphere  congenial  to  the  life  of  the  soul 
and  harmonious  with  the  instincts  of  the  heart  ? 

At  this  stage  of  her  history  it  appeared  to  the 
Indian  mind  as  if  the  only  chance  of  emancipation 
were  material  disembodiment.  To  rise  above  the 
world  seemed  impossible,  except  by  rising  above 
the  things  of  the  world.  How  was  this  elevation 
to  be  effected  ?  It  is  quite  a  common  tiling  for 
men  who  are  passing  through  this  Indian  experi- 
ence, to  attempt  an  emancipation  from  the  things 
of  time  by  contemplating  the  hour  of  death.  But 
the  men  who  do  so  are  actuated  by  the  notion 
that  the  things  of  time  are  now  realities.  Tlie 
Indian  mind  had  arrived  at  a  contrary  belief.  It 
was  not  simply  that  she  believed  there  was  a  time 
coming  when  these  visible  things  would  pass  away ; 
she  did  not  believe  them  to  exist  now.     There  was 


124  Messages  of  the  Old  Beligions. 

no  use  to  wait  for  death  to  find  emancipation  from 
tliem ;  they  were  at  the  present  moment  matters 
of  mere  imagination,  and  therefore  there  must  be 
out  of  them  some  present  mode  of  exit.  AVhat 
was  that  mode  ?  The  attempt  to  answer  this 
question  is  the  birth  of  Indian  philosophy  —  a 
philosophy  which  directly  or  indirectly  has  domin- 
ated the  whole  course  of  human  speculation.  It 
is  the  transition  from  the  hymns  of  the  '  Eig-Veda ' 
into  the  creed  called  Brahmanism — a  creed  which, 
dating  almost  from  the  dawn  of  history,  has  been 
unsurpassed  in  intellectual  subtlety  by  all  the  sub- 
sequent efforts  of  the  mind  of  man.  Even  at  this 
remote  date  it  does  not  appear  an  anachronism. 
It  belongs  as  much  to  the  nineteenth  century  after 
the  Christian  era  as  to  the  ninth  century  before 
it,  and  the  student  of  modern  times,  in  pondering 
its  abstruse  speculations,  feels  that  he  is  breathing 
an  atmosphere  not  alien  to  that  wliich  has  come 
from  the  spirit  of  the  German  renaissance. 

These  efforts  of  the  Indian  mind  to  emancipate 
itself  from  the  shadows  of  time  will  be  found  speci- 
ally embodied  in  those  philosophic  works  called  tlie 
'  Upanishads,'  ^ — a  word  wdiich  probably  means  "  that 
which  lies  beneath  the  surface."  Into  any  technical 
account  of  these  speculations  it  is  neither  my  inten- 

^  See  Professor  Max  Miiller's  *  History  of  Ancient  Sanskrit  Litera- 
ture (London,  1860)  ;  also  John  Muir's  'Original  Sanskrit  Texts,* 
vol.  i.-iv.  (London,  1858-1SG3). 


^riie  Message  of  India.  125 

fion  nor  my  province  to  enter.  I  wish  merely  to 
photograph  the  leading  features  of  the  system,  and 
to  put  them  in  a  light  which  shall  be  intelligible 
to  the  English  mind.  I  shall  avoid  all  technical 
language,  and  shall  endeavour,  by  an  attempt  at 
lucid  exposition,  to  make  clear  a  subject  which 
the  grotesqueness  of  mythological  terms  has  in- 
vested with  a  mist  beyond  its  natural  mysticism. 
Brahmanism,  which  we  have  characterised  as  the 
second  stage  in  the  life  of  India,  is  the  effort  through 
despair  of  the  world  to  fly  from  the  world.  But  the 
Brahman  may  say,  like  the  Psalmist  in  a  different 
sense,  "  Whither  shall  I  flee  from  Thy  presence  ? " 
The  world  is  to  him  an  assemblage  of  shadows — a 
dream;  but  for  that  very  reason  it  seems  to  present 
no  refuge.  What  advantage  can  he  get  by  fleeing 
from  one  shadow  to  another?  Must  not  all  his 
efforts  be  only  a  fliglit  from  illusion  to  illusion  ? 
Yet,  as  he  meditates  on  this  dark  prospect,  there 
comes  to  him  a  startling  thought.  He  says,  This 
world  is  indeed  a  dream ;  but  if  so,  must  there  not 
be  a  dreamer  ?  Does  not  the  very  fact  of  illusion 
imply  the  presence  of  one  who  is  subject  to  illusion  ? 
Conceding  that  all  the  phenomena  of  the  universe 
are  phenomena  of  a  dream-sleep,  who  is  the  sleeper, 
and  who  is  the  dreamer  ?  AVhoever  he  is,  he  must 
lie  beneath  the  shadows,  must  be  independent  of 
the  shadows,  and  must  tlicrcfore  be  an  ultimate 
refuse  from  the  shadows. 


126  Messages  of  the  Old  Religions, 

And  the  Brahman  answers,  The  dreamer  is  God 
Almighty.  If  the  world  to  him  be  an  assemblage 
of  shadows,  it  is  not  therefore  an  assemblage  of 
sleepers.  All  the  images  of  the  universe,  images  as 
they  are  of  the  night,  yet  pass  through  the  experi- 
ence of  a  single  soul — the  Divine  Soul.  There  are 
not  two  dreamers,  but  only  one  —  the  Absohite 
Spirit.  The  appearance  of  a  multitude  results  from 
the  fact  that  the  one  consciousness  is  presented  in 
fragments.  If  a  vase  falls  from  a  height,  it  will  be 
broken  into  a  hundred  pieces ;  yet  even  in  their 
brokenness  these  pieces  will  reveal  not  two  vases 
but  one.  When  the  sun  breaks  upon  various  sheets 
of  water,  we  have  a  better  simile  still  of  the 
Brahman's  creed.  A  thousand  suns  are  then  pre- 
sented to  the  eye,  revealiug  not  fragments,  like  the 
shattered  vase,  but  the  entire  rounded  image  of  the 
object.  Yet  all  the  time  the  plurality  is  an  illusion. 
There  are  not  a  thousand  suns,  but  only  one — the 
original  one  in  the  heavens.  The  nine  hundred  and 
ninety-nine  exist  only  in  thp  eye — that  is  to  say, 
exist  only  in  the  consciousness.  The  life  that  was 
a  unity  in  the  heavens,  when  it  passes  into  the 
earth  takes  the  form  of  diversity ;  the  one  becomes 
the  many.^ 

Let  us  try  to  illustrate  the  point  by  yet  another 

^  Tlie  pantheism  of  the  Brahmanic  creed  will  be  well  seen  from 
a  Upanishad  of  the  fourth  Veda,  given  by  Colebrooke,  'Asiatic 
llesearches,'  viii.  475. 


The  Message  of  India.  127 

simile,  which  will  bring  tlie  picture  nearer  than 
either  of  the  two  preceding.  Let  us  imagine  a  fire 
lighted  at  the  end  of  a  room  in  which  there  are 
a  hundred  mirrors.  Every  one  of  these  mirrors  will 
reveal  a  separate  fire.  In  this  case  there  will  be 
not  merely,  as  with  the  sun  on  the  sheets  of  water, 
a  complete  image  of  various  objects,  but  these 
various  objects  will  all  be  visible  at  one  and  the 
same  moment.  Nevertheless,  here,  as  in  the  case 
of  the  images  of  sunlight,  we  are  in  the  presence  of 
only  one  reality — the  originally  lighted  fire.  The 
others  are  all  illusions,  and  if  we  could  imagine 
them  gifted  with  intelligence,  they  would  recognise 
themselves  to  be  illusions.  Each  of  them  would 
say :  "  I  am  not  the  fire  on  the  mirror,  as  you  sup- 
pose ;  I  am  the  fire  at  the  end  of  the  room.  In 
myself  I  am  nothirg ;  my  whole  personality  is  tlie 
personality  of  this  original  fire.  If  you  were  to  put 
out  this  fire,  I  would  be  nowhere,  for  I  am  nowhere 
even  now  except  in  so  far  as  I  reflect  and  image 
this  primal  light." 

This  metaphor  seems  to  me  to  express  exactly  the 
doctrine  of  Brahmanism  regardintx  God's  relation  to 
the  world,  with  the  single  exception  of  the  fact  that 
in  the  doctrine  of  Brahmanism  the  mirror  itself 
would  be  an  illusion.  The  mirror  here  must  be 
regarded  as  tlie  dream — the  canvas  of  fancy  on 
which  are  painted  the  images  of  the  night  of  time. 
You  will  observe  that  to  the  mind  of  the  Indian  the 


123  Messages  of  the  Old  Eelirjions. 

mirrors  are  the  disturbing  things.  There  are  recog- 
nised by  him  three  stages  in  the  life  of  the  Divine 
Spirit.^  The  first  stage  is  that  in  wliich  the  fire 
burns  alone  in  the  room,  without  any  object  to 
reflect  it ;  it  is  the  period  in  whicli  the  Divine 
Spirit  enjoys  rest  unbroken  by  a  dream.  When 
the  Indian  thinks  of  God  in  this  light  he  calls  Him 
Brahma.  The  second  is  tliat  in  which  the  divine 
rest  is  broken  and  the  dream  begins.  It  is  tlie  stage 
when  the  mirrors  are  introduced  into  the  apartment, 
and  when,  by  their  deceitful  reflection,  the  one  fire 
appears  to  be  the  many.  When  the  Indian  thinks 
of  God  in  this  light  he  calls  Him  Vishnu.  The  third 
is  that  in  which  the  dream  vanishes  again  and  the 
unbroken  rest  returns.  It  is  the  stage  in  which 
the  mirrors  are  removed,  in  which  the  illusion  of 
the  many  lights  disappears,  and  the  original  fire 
resumes  once  more  its  solitary  and  undivided  em- 
pire. When  the  Indian  tliinks  of  God  in  this  light 
he  calls  Him  Siva. 

Xow,  it  is  to  Siva  that  in  the  mind  of  the  Brah- 
man the  main  interest  attaches.  The  word  literally 
means  the  "  destroyer."  He  belongs  to  the  stage 
where  the  mirrors  are  annihilated,  where  the  dream 
of  life  vanishes,  and  where  the  imaginary  lights  go 
back  into  the  real  and  primal  light.  The  worship 
of  a  destroyer  seems  a  startling  thing,  appears  to 

'  They  are  not  stages  of  development ;  the  third  is  only  the  first 
restored,  after  an  imaginary  interruption. 


The  Message  of  India,      ,  129. 

be  sometliing  anomalous  in  the  history  of  reh"gion. 
It  is  not  really  so ;  it  is  the  second  stage  in  the 
message  of  life.  Nearly  every  man  exj)eriences  at 
one  time  what  the  Brahman  has  experienced  and 
photographed.  What  is  that  destroyer  whom  the 
Brahman  worships  ?  It  is  the  destroyer  of  shams, 
of  illusions,  of  dreams.  The  destruction  he  craves 
is  the  destruction  of  things  which  to  him  have  no 
existence  except  in  imagination  ;  in  other  words,  it 
is  the  destroying  of  vain  fancies.  He  wants  to  get 
his  mind  emancipated  from  illusion?.  He  feels  that 
the  things  of  sense  and  time,  shadows  as  they  are, 
are  yet  shadows  which  eclipse  from  the  sight  tlie 
realities  of  being,  and  he  longs  for  tlie  rising  of  a 
sun  which  shall  dispel  even  their  semblance  of  exist- 
ence.^ This  is  what  every  life  experiences  in  its 
second  stage  —  the  stage  in  which  its  primitive 
hope  has  faded  into  despair.  The  moment  we 
find  that  life  has  failed  to  fulfil  its  early  pro^ 
niises,  we  seek  refuge  in  the  belief  that  the  things 
we  desired  were  only  shadows.  Our  greatest  com- 
fort lies  in  contemplating  their  unsubstantiality, 
and  in  looking  to  a  state  of  things  where  they 
shall  have  no  existence  even  in  thought. .  At  these 
times  we  all  worship  the  destroyer ;  our  view  of 
eternity  is  itself  that  of  a  destroyer,  of  something 

^  The  attitude  of  the  Brahman  towards  the  world  is  finely- 
portrayed  by  Max  Miiller,  'Ancient  Sanskrit  Literature,'  p.  18 
and  sequel. 


130  Messages  of  the  Old  Religions. 

that  shall  rend  in  tatters  our  webs  of  sophistry. 
Let  no  one  imagine  that  this  aspiration  of  the 
Brahman  has  nothing  in  common  with  Christianity. 
It  presents,  on  the  contrary,  one  of  the  main  links 
by  which  a  Christian  missionary  might  connect  the 
religion  of  the  Cross  with  the  religious  life  of  India. 
"When  we  sing  in  our  churches  every  Sunday  those 
words  of  Keble, 

"Till,  in  the  ocean  of  Tliy  love, 
We  lose  ourselves  in  heaven  above," 

are  we  breathing  an}"  other  aspiration  than  that 
which,  in  somewhat  fantastic  form,  is  expressed  in 
the  creed  of  Brahmanism  ?  When  we  chant  in  our 
worship  the  prayer  of  Toplady, 

"  Rock  of  Ages,  cleft  for  me. 
Let  me  hide  myself  in  Thee,"  • 

what  else  are  we  doing  but  re-echoing  the  old  Indian 
desire  to  be  liberated  from  our  past  and  from  our 
present  by  the  entrance  into  a  life  which  shall  dis- 
sipate their  shadows  ?  This  mysticism,  as  we  call  it, 
belongs  to  no  special  faith ;  it  belongs  to  human 
nature.  I  do  not  say  it  belongs  to  human  nature 
at  every  stage  of  its  being ;  I  believe  that  it  is 
not  the  ripeness  nor  the  fulness  of  the  life  of  man./^ 
But  it  is  assuredly  the  product  of  life's  second  period, 
— its  period  of  disenchantment.  It  comes  ever  with 
that  time  when  the  soul  awakens  to  the  sense  that 


The  Message  of  India.  131 

what  it  believed  to  be  a  substance  was  only  a 
shadow.  In  the  first  discovery  of  the  illusoriness  of 
the  things  of  time,  the  impulse  of  the  human  spirit  is 
always  to  break  away  from  time,  and  to  seek  a  refuge 
in  something  which  transcends  the  visible;  its  im- 
mediate voice  is  the  cry  of  the  Psalmist,  "  Oh  that 
I  had  wings  like  a  dove  !  for  then  would  I  fly  away, 
and  be  at  rest." 

How,  then,  is  this  dream  to  be  broken  ?  How 
is  the  mind  to  be  emancipated  from  the  belief  in 
these  shadows  ?  We  often  in  the  visions  of  the 
night  recognise  a  dream  to  be  a  dream  without 
being  able  to  shake  it  off;  we  have  an  impression 
that  we  are  not  awake,  and  yet  we  cannot  tell  in 
what  respect  the  waking  consciousness  ought  to 
differ  from  the  illusion  which  besets  us.  How  is 
tlie  Brahman  to  get  rid  of  his  illusion  ?  He  answers 
that  in  order  to  get  rid  of  it  he  must  cease  to  love 
it.  That  which  in  tlie  view  of  Brahmanism  tends 
to  perpetuate  the  dream  is  the  fact  that  the  dream, 
in  spite  of  its  recognised  illusoriness,  is  with  the 
large  mass  of  men  an  object  of  affection ;  they 
cling  to  the  shadows  even  while  they  feel  their 
shadow iness.  Now,  whatever  we  love  tends  to  per- 
sist in  the  mind;  even  if  torn  away  by  violence, 
it  returns  to  our  thought  with  redoubled  power. 
The  Brahman  had  no  liope  whatever  of  getting 
emancipated  from  tlie  dream  by  the  mere  fact  of 
death.     It  was  his  opinion  that  if  a  man  died  with 


132  Messages  of  the  Old  Religions, 

his  heart  fixed  on  the  things  of  sense,  the  things  of 
sense  would  come  back  to  him  again ;  in  other 
words,  that  he  would  repeat  his  old  life  in  a  new 
form.  This  is  the  root  of  that  doctrine  which  has 
been  so  fruitful  of  results  in  so  many  forms  of  faith 
— the  transmigration  of  the  soul.  It  is  founded 
upon  the  Indian  belief  that  there  is  a  congruity 
between  the  body  and  the  mind,  a  congruity  which 
mere  change  of  space  cannot  alter,  and  which  death 
itself  does  not  of  necessity  annul.  If  a  man  has  left 
this  world  with  a  strong  leaning  towards  animal 
impulses,  he  will  in  due  time  be  born  into  this 
world  again  in  a  body  corresponding  to  these  animal 
impulses — perhaps  even  in  an  animal  body.  There 
is  a  principle  of  attraction  between  body  and  soul 
which  stretches  beyond  the  grave,  and  which  tends 
to  reincarnate  the  soul  in  an  environment  and  in 
circumstances  similar  to  its  former  self.  The  deeds 
which  we  do  in  the  body  are  helping  to  mould  the 
body,  and  the  mould  of  the  body  shall  determine 
the  future  home  of  the  spirit.  This  retributive 
power  of  action,  this  tendency  of  bodily  deeds  to 
form  a  tabernacle  for  the  man  after  death,  is  what 
the  Indian  called  Karma.  It  answers  more  nearly 
to  our  modern  idea  of  heredity  than  to  any  other 
conception.  It  is  the  reappearance  in  an  after-age 
of  seeds  which  have  been  sown  by  us  in  this,  and  its 
only  difference  from  hereditary  transmission  consists 
in  the  fact  that  the  seeds  reappear  not  merely  to  the 


The  Message  of  India.  133 

eve  of  posterity,  but  to  the  sight  and  to  the  experi- 
ence of  the  man  who  sowed  them. 

In  the  religion  of  India,  as  in  Cliristianitv,  a  man 
has  a  judgment-seat  after  death ;  he  must  render 
an  account  of  the  things  done  in  the  body.  But 
the  account  which  the  man  renders  in  the  religion 
of  India  consists  not  in  bearing  a  penalty  in  some 
future  state,  but  in  getting  back  to  the  state  from 
which  death  has  outwardly  severed  him.  His  pun- 
ishment lies  in  being  obliged  to  retrace  his  steps 
into  an  environment  corresponding  in  all  essential 
respects  to  that  which  he  formerly  inhabited.  If 
he  leaves  the  world  with  the  world  in  his  heart,  the 
world  in  his  heart  will  bring  him  back  again  to 
scenes  and  situations  which  shall  simply  repeat  the 
experience  of  bygone  days,  and  clothe  him  anew  in 
that  form  of  vesture  from  which  death  ought  to  have 
set  him  free.  The  retributive  power  of  Karma  lies 
in  the  congruity  between  a  man's  body  and  a  man's 
soul.  The  house  in  which  the  spirit  dwells  is  a 
house  not  made  with  hands  but  w^ith  desires.  The 
wish  is  not  only  the  father  of  the  thought,  but  the 
source  of  the  embodiment ;  where  a  man's  heart  is, 
his  tabernacle  shall  be  also.  The  first  and  foremost 
thing  is  to  remove  and  to  improve  the  wish.  If  the 
soul  would  escape  transmigration  at  the  hour  of 
death  into  a  body  and  a  life  repeating  the  shad- 
ows of  to-day,  it  must  begin  to-day  by  turning  its 
thoughts  from  these  shadows.     It  must  set  its  afiec- 


134  Messages  of  the  Old  Religions. 

tions  already  on  the  things  above.  It  must  tear  up 
by  the  roots  its  propensity  to  live  in  the  temporal, 
and  must  plant  in  its  room  a  love  for  the  unseen 
and  eternal.  Such  a  love  will  be  more  effectual 
than  deatli  in  separating  the  man  from  his  environ- 
ment of  clay.  It  will  interpose  a  stronger  barrier 
than  the  grave  to  the  reappearance  of  his  old  con- 
ditions, and  will  usher  him,  even  while  on  earth, 
into  a  life  from  which  these  conditions  are  ex- 
cluded. The  man  who  longs  for  eternity  has  parted 
already  from  the  body  of  time. 

In  connection  with  this  subject  there  is  a  point 
in  the  Indian  religion  which  has  often  struck  me  as 
very  peculiar:  I  allude  to  the  institution  of  caste. 
Does  it  not  seem  a  strange  thing  that  the  doctrine 
of  caste  should  have  found  its  origin  and  its  most 
favoured  home  precisely  in  that  region  where  men 
had  decided  to  abandon  the  world  ?  Would  we  not 
expect  that  a  race  which  had  awakened  to  a  sense 
of  the  notliingness  of  time  would  have  ignored 
above  all  things  those  petty  distinctions  of  rank 
which  tend  to  perpetuate  temporal  conditions  ? 
The  superiority  of  man  to  man  is  supposed  to  hav^e 
its  origin  in  the  desires  of  the  flesh ;  why  does  a 
religion,  whose  leading  aim  is  to  obliterate  these 
desires,  place  in  the  very  foreground  of  its  system 
a  gradation  of  human  ranks  whose  summit  touches 
the  heavens  and  whose  base  is  on  the  ground  ? 
.  Such   was   the    difficulty   which  often  presented 


TJlc  Message  of  India,  135 

itself  to  my  own  mind  in  contemplating  the  spirit  of 
Brahmanism.  On  a  deeper  reflection,  however,  I 
oame  to  the  conclusion  tliat  even  in  its  doctrine  of 
caste,  Brahmanism  is  not  inconsistent  with  itself. 
It  is  true  that  in  this  doctrine  it  does  recognise,  in 
very  pronounced  terms,  the  superiority  of  man  to 
man.  But  what  is  the  ground  of  that  superiority  ? 
It  is  the  comparative  amount  of  unworldliness.  I 
do  not  say  that  this  idea  persisted  through  the 
history  of  caste,  but  I  do  believe  that  it  existed  at 
its  origin,  and  was  the  immediate  cause  of  its  for- 
mation. Look  at  the  four  castes  of  India,  and  you 
will  see,  if  I  mistake  not,  that  they  are  regulated  by 
their  relative  degree  of  superiority  to  the  things  of 
time.  At  the  top  of  the  social  ladder  stands  the 
priest.  He  stands  there  because  in  all  ages  priest- 
hood has  been  the  special  type  of  sacrifice.  That 
the  priest  has  ever  perfectly  realised  that  type  can- 
not be  affirmed  of  any  religion,  least  of  all  of  the 
religion  of  India.  But  this  does  not  by  one  iota 
alter  the  fact  that  the  ideal  of  priesthood  is  sacrifice. 
The  man  who  stands  at  the  altar  is  by  profession 
the  representative  of  the  highest  form  of  self-sur- 
render. He  typifies  the  place  and  the  hour  in  which 
humanity  resigns  its  delight  in  all  worldly  things, 
and  sets  its  affections  on  the  things  above.  There- 
fore it  is  that  the  Brahman  has  placed  him  at  the 
head  of  the  social  ladder.  He  has  been  made  first 
in  the  world  precisely  because  he  is  supposed  to 


136  Messarjes  of  the  Old  Religions. 

Lave  given  up  the  world  altogether;  it  is  the  pre- 
eminence of  social  extinction.  Then,  a  step  lower 
clown,  stands  the  soldier.  His  is  also  by  definition 
a  sacrificial  life.  That  in  point  of  fact  it  has  been 
often  the  reverse  of  sacriHcial  is  indisputable ;  it  has 
been  frequently  the  most  oppressive  of  all  forces. 
Yet  this  is  contrary  to  its  ideal.  The  ideal  of  the 
soldier  is  that  of  a  man  who  has  lost  his  person- 
ality in  the  life  of  his  country,  who  has  given  up  his 
individual  desires  for  a  national  motive,  and  who 
has  become  animated  by  one  spirit  which  has  dis- 
placed every  private  will — the  spirit  of  patriotism. 
Therefore  he  stands  in  the  second  rank  amongst  the 
castes  of  India,  yielding  only  to  the  priest  in  the 
order  of  his  pre-eminence.  Yet  with  him,  as  with 
the  priest,  the  order  of  pre-eminence  is  a  sacrificial 
order.  He  stands  at  the  top  of  the  ladder  because 
he  has  less  personality  than  those  below,  and  he 
owes  his  superiority  to  the  belief  that  he  has  made 
a  more  full  surrender  of  his  individual  independence. 
We  take  a  step  further  down  still,  and  we  come 
to  the  third  caste — that  of  the  agriculturist  or  man 
of  commerce.  He  is,  from  an  Indian  point  of  view, 
decidedly  below  either  the  priest  or  the  soldier. 
His  profession  is  by  nature  less  sacrificial;  it  does 
not  of  necessity  involve  the  giving  up  of  himself 
for  others.  It  is  possible  in  such  a  life  as  his  to 
make  his  own  interest  the  sole  motive  of  his  living. 
Nevertheless,  he  does  not  stand  at  the  foot  of  the 


.     The  Message  of  India.  137 

ladder.  With  all  his  temptations  to  selfishness,  lie 
may  still  be  unselfish.  He  may  realise  the  fact 
that  the  life  of  commerce  is,  after  all,  not  for  the 
individual  but  for  the  community — that  it  is  based 
upon  the  very  idea  of  an  interchange  of  wants, 
whereby  a  man  gives  to  his  brother  what  his  brother 
needs,  in  return  for  receiving  what  he  himself  re- 
quires. In  the  very  practice  of  agriculture  he  may 
recognise  the  symbol  of  a  sacrificial  life,  in  which 
the  seed  comes  to  the  surface  only  because  it  has 
been  buried,  and  he  may  be  stimulated  by  that 
symbol  to  go  and  do  likewise.  Therefore  it  is  that 
even  for  him  there  is  reserved  a  place  higher  than 
the  lowest — a  place  which  touches,  indeed,  the  bor- 
ders of  the  worldly,  but  which  yet  lies  intermediate 
between  the  secular  and  the  sacred.  He  is  a  step 
below  the  heavens,  yet  a  step  above  the  earth. 

The  lowest  place  is  reserved  for  the  fourth  order — 
that  of  the  slave.  The  serf  occupies  in  the  religion 
of  India  the  most  subordinate  position  in  sacred  as 
well  as  in  secular  things.  Yet  I  am  by  no  means  of 
opinion  that  he  has  been  assigned  this  subordinate 
position  in  religion  by  reason  of  his  lowly  condition 
of  life.  It  is  not  because  he  is  a  slave  that  he 
holds  the  lowest  place  amongst  the  privileges  of 
the  worshipper,  but  because,  being  a  slave,  he  has 
not  the  opportunity  of  yielding  up  a  voluntary 
sacrifice.  It  is  not  the  fact  of  his  dependence  that 
places  him  on  that  step  of  the  religious  ladder  which 


138  Messages  of  the  Old  Religions. 

is  nearest  to  tlie  ground.  Dependence,  in  the  view 
of  the  Braliman,  so  far  from  being  a  thing  to 'be 
despised,  is  a  thing  to  be  sought  and  venerated. 
The  cioal  of  all  life,  the  ultimate  aim  of  all  exist- 
ence,  is  that  the  individual  should  surrender  him- 
self to  the  sway  of  the  Universal  Will — that  man 
should  lose  himself  in  God.  But  the  difference 
between  the  surrender  of  the  devotee  to  God  and 
the  surrender  of  tlie  slave  to  his  earthly  master,  is 
tliat  in  the  one  case  the  act  is  voluntary,  in  the 
other  obligatory.  The  slave  gives  up  his  life  to 
his  master  because  he  is  compelled  to  do  so;  he  is 
not  under  grace  but  under  the  law.  It  is  this  which 
puts  him,  in  the  view  of  the  Brahman,  lower  than 
the  priest,  lower  than  the  soldier,  lower  even  than 
the  merchant.  He  is  not  his  own  master.  He  is 
in  the  strictest  sense  a  mere  individual  unit,  im- 
pelled to  act  from  motives  of  private  interest.  He  is 
dominated  every  moment  by  the  sense  of  fear.  His 
action  never  passes  beyond  himself,  never  contem- 
plates its  effect  on  humanity.  It  is  done  purely 
as  a  source  of  self-preservation,  and  in  the  preserva- 
tion of  his  individual  self  its  purpose  ends.  There- 
fore to  this  fourth  order  of  the  body  politic  there 
is  assigned  the  lowest  place  on  the  social  ladder. 
He  stands  at  the  very  base  because  his  life  does  not 
transcend  the  earth,  and  his  aspirations  do  not  reach 
above  the  ground.  He  is  a  child  of  the  soil,  a 
creature  of  the  dust,  a  denizen  of  the  day  and  hour ; 


The  Message  of  India.  139 

and  therefore  there  is  given  to  liim  a  place  on  a 
level  with  the  dust  and  an  order  commensurate 
with  tlie  hour.i 

Such  is,  in  my  view,  the  mental  origin  of  the  idea 
oi  caste  as  exhibited  in  India.  It  is  only  as  an 
origin  that  I  propose  it.  It  is  certainly  no  longer 
the  Indian  motive  for  its  own  social  order ;  that 
motive  has  long  since  become  worldly.  But  origin- 
ally it  was  not  worldly.  In  that  period  of  transition 
in  which  the  Indian  mind  woke  np  from  its  dream 
that  this  earth  was  an  elysium,  it  passed  firmly  and 
instantaneously  to  the  opposite  extreme.  It  came 
to  regard  this  world  not  as  a  paradise  but  as  a 
hindrance  to  paradise — as  an  illusion,  a  dream,  a 
clog  on  the  aspirations  of  the  spirit.  It  was  at  this 
period  of  worldly  pessimism  that  the  idea  of  caste 
arose,  and  surely  its  rise  must  be  interpreted  in 
accordance  with  the  age  which  produced  it.  Is 
it  probable,  is  it  conceivable,  that  at  the  very 
moment  in  which  India  proclaimed  the  despair  of 
earthly  life,  she  should  have  inaugurated  a  system 
intended  to  propagate  earthly  vanities  ?  Is  it  likely 
that  caste  could  have  meant  to  her  the  superiority 
of  one  man  to  another  at  a  time  when  she  had 
reached    a   conviction    of    the    nothingness    of    all 

^  The  best  account  of  these  four  orders  of  caste  will  be  found  in 
the  first  volume  of  Dr  John  Muir's  '  Original  Sanskrit  Texts  on  the 
Origin  and  Progress  of  the  Religion  and  Institutions  of  India,  col- 
lected, translated  into  English,  and  illustrated  by  Notes.' 


140  Messages  of  the  Old  Religions. 

luiman  things  ?  Is  it  not  far  more  probable  that 
the  idea  of  caste  was  itself  an  expression  of  this 
sense  of  human  nothingness,  and  that  the  degrees 
by  which  she  regulated  the  ladder  of  earthly  great- 
ness were  degrees  in  the  power  to  sacrifice  and 
superiorities  in  the  strength  of  self-surrender  ? 


The  Message  of  India.  141 


CHAPTER   YI. 


^TIIE   SUBJECT   COMPLETED. 

Has  the  Indian  message  of  life  now  reached  its  con- 
summation ?  It  has  proclaimed  in  its  second  stage 
that  the  world,  which  originally  seemed  a  scene  of 
perfection,  is  a  scene  unfitted  to  man  —  a  scene 
which  man  ought  to  get  rid  of.  Is  this  the  last 
word  on  the  subject  ?  Does  life  rise  into  moral 
heiglits  in  proportion  as  it  rises  beyond  the  seen 
and  temporal  ?  India  herself  must  furnish  the 
answer,  and  her  answer  is  an  emphatic  negative. 
Perhap^'the  votaries  of  Brahmanism  are  at  once 
the  most  religious  and  the  most  immoral  of  all 
sects.  They  are  pervaded  with  a  sense  of  the 
nothingness  of  time,  and  their  whole  idea  is  directed 
to  rising  above  this  nothingness.  But  this  negative 
relation  towards  the  world  is  far  from  being  favour- 
able to  morality.  ^  It  may  have  the  advantage  of 
leading  a  man  not  to  fret,  but  it  leads  him  at  the 
same  time  not  to  act^'  If  time  is  but  a  vision  of  the 
night,  if  the  forms  of  earth  are  but  the  imac^es  in  a 


143  Messages  of  tJie  Old  Religions. 

dream,  there  is  nothing  good  any  more  than  bad  in 
the  world ;  there  is  simply  illusion.  To  abstain 
from  righteous  living  is  to  abstain  from  vanity ;  to 
engage  in  unrighteous  living  is  to  do  something 
which  is  not  real,  and  if  not  real,  then  not  really 
harmful.  Accordingly  the  creed  of  Brahmanism  is 
consistent  with  itself  in  its  very  inconsistency.  It 
tells  men  to  be  sacrificial,  and  to  realise  their  own 
nothingness.  It  tells  them  to  look  with  contempt 
upon  the  things  of  space  and  the  events  of  time. 
Yet  it  bases  its  precept  upon  the  fact  that  they  are 
things  of  space,  and  that  they  are  events  of  time. 
The  contempt  is  thus  poured  not  only  on  acts  of 
vice,  but  on  all  acts  whatsoever.  Every  work, 
whether  virtuous  or  vicious,  is  but  a  gesture  in  a 
di-eam.  The  virtuous  act  can  do  no  good,  and  the 
vicious  act  can  do  no  harm ;  they  are  both  unreal- 
ities. Is  it  inconsistent  in  the  Brahman  to  hold 
lightly  the  requirements  of  conscience  ?  Is  it  strange 
that,  with  a  creed  which  reduces  everything  to  in- 
difference, his  own  life  should  exhibit  side  by  side 
the  depths  of  self-surrender  and  the  heights  of  self- 
indulgence  ?  Is  it  peculiar  tliat  at  one  and  the  same 
moment  we  should  find  him  prostrating  himself  in 
abject  reverence  before  the  altar,  and  putting  forth 
his  hand  to  defraud  his  brother  man  ?  ^ 

^  The  moral  tendency  of  Brahmanism  is  finely  described  by  Pro- 
fessor "Wilson,  '  Essays  and  Lectures,  chiefly  on  the  Religion  of  the 
Hindoos,'  ii.  75.     Edit.  London. 


'     The  Message  of  India.  143 

We  have  not,  then,  reached  the  final  word  of  the 
Indian  message.  There  is  a  stage  yet  to  come  in  the 
development  of  Indian  life,  because  there  is  a  stage 
yet  to  come  in  the  development  of  universal  life. 
There  is  a  time  in  the  life  of  every  man  in  which 
the  primitive  vision  of  this  world's  glory  vanishes, 
and  in  which  the  cry  of  the  human  spirit  is  only  to 
get  free.  It  is  the  period  of  man's  asceticism,  the 
period  in  which  his  whole  desire  is  to  be  eman^ 
cipated  from  the  present  order  of  things,  and  to  be 
ushered  into  a  life  in  wdiich  time  shall  be  no  more: 
It  is  a  period  highly  favourable  to  what  is  popularly 
called  religion,  but  highly  unfavourable  to  what  is 
universally  know^n  as  morality.  The  world  is  dwarfed 
to  the  view,  but  for  that  very  reason  its  interests 
dwindle.  If  there  vanishes  the  temptation  to  do 
wronc^  there  ^oes  out  with  it  also  the  incentive 
to  do  right.  If  the  world  is  contemplated  merely  as 
a  thing  which  passes  away,  we  sliall  have  as  little 
respect  for  the  virtues  as  for  the  lusts  of  it.  Ac- 
cordingly, for  the  universal  life  of  man,  as  for  the 
particular  life  of  India,  there  is  wanted  a  completing 
stage.  He  has  realised  the  fact  that  the  world  is 
a  scene  of  care,  and  he  has  sought  to  get  rid  of 
care  by  getting  rid  of  the  world.  This  is  equiva- 
lent to  ending  the  pains  of  life  by  an  act  of  suicide. 
Is  there  any  other  mode  of  getting  rid  of  tlie  pains 
of  life  ?  There  is,  and  it  is  one  wdiich  has  been  tried 
by  all  nations.     It  is  the  method  of  life's  afternoon, 


144  Messages  of  the  Old  Religions. 

as  distinguished  from  either  its  morning  or  its  mid- 
day. In  its  morning  its  individual  hopes  are  high, 
and  it  sees  a  world  whose  streets  are  paved  with 
gold.  In  its  mid-day  its  individual  cares  are  deep, 
and  it  beholds  a  world  only  worthy  to  vanish  away. 
But  with  its  afternoon  there  comes  a  thought  differ- 
ent from  either  the  one  or  the  other,  unlike  the 
morning  and  unlike  the  mid-day.  There  breaks 
upon  it  the  conviction  that  there  is  a  possibility  of 
escaping  individual  care  without  leaving  the  world, 
without  leaving  care  itself.  Is  it  not  possible  to 
get  rid  of  my  burden  by  taking  on  another's  burden, 
to  drop  the  weight  of  the  individual  life  by  lifting 
the  weight  of  the  universe  ?  Such  is  the  question 
that  sooner  or  later  is  asked  by  every  developed 
man ;  such  was  the  question  that  was  now  about 
to  be  asked  by  India.  She  had  tried  the  wings  of 
a  dove  by  which  to  fly  away  from  the  world,  but 
she  had  found  that  this  power  of  flight  had  not 
exalted  her.  Was  there  no  other  escape  for  her- 
self than  by  flying  away  ?  Might  she  not  stand  in 
the  midst  of  the  world  and  be  unworldly,  in  the 
midst  of  care  and  be  free  ?  Was  there  not  a  method 
of  life  remaining  by  which  the  spirit  of  man  might 
enter  into  rest  here  and  now,  and  in  the  very  heart 
of  the  busy  crowd  might  experience  that  peace  which 
passeth  understanding  ? 

The  answer  to  this  question  was  the  birth  of  one 
of  the  greatest  religious   systems  which  have  ever 


The  Message  of  India.  145 

dominated  the  mind  of  man  —  a  system  which  at 
the  present  moment  numbers  amongst  its  votaries 
a  large  proportion  of  the  earth's  population,^  and 
which  ranks  in  moral  intensity  second  to  Christianity 
alone.  I  allude  of  course  to  Buddhism — the  third 
great  movement  of  the  Indian  mind,  and  one  of 
the  mightiest  movements  in  tlie  mind  of  the  world. 
Let  us  try  to  mark  distinctly  the  precise  point  of 
contrast  between  the  old  faith  and  the  new,  between 
the  creed  called  Brahmanism  and  this  new  concep- 
tion of  the  life  of  man.  On  one  point  they  were 
agreed :  both  recognised  the  fact  that  this  world  was 
a  state  of  nothingness.  AYhere  they  differed  was  in 
the  conclusion  they  derived  from  this  position. 
Brahmanism  said,  "This  world  is  a  state  of  nothing- ( 
ness,  therefore  look  up  ;  turn  away  your  eyes  towards! 
the  things  which  are  unseen  and  eternal."  Buddhism' 
said,  "  This  world  is  a  state  of  nothingness,  therefore'  ^ 
look  down ;  when  you  are  oppressed  with  a  sense 
of  your  individual  woe,  try  to  contemplate  the  fact 
that  this  woe  is  not  yours  alone,  but  something 
which  belongs  to  life  as  life.  In  your  hour  of  sorrow 
and  care,  instead  of  turning  away  from  the  world, 
endeavour  to  contemplate  the  world  more  closely. 
Look  beneath  the  surface,  and  you  will  find  that 
the  sorrows  and  cares  which  you  experience  are 
but  fragments  of  a  vast  weight  of  suffering  which 

^  On    this   point  see   Professor   Max    Miiller's    '  Chips   from   a 
German  Workshop,'  i.   214. 

K 


146  Messages  of  the  Old  Religions. 

is  pressing  with  equal  intensity  on  the  whole  mass 
of  humanity.  In  contemplating  that  fact,  you  will 
find  a  more  complete  solace  than  ever  was  experi- 
enced by  the  Brahman  in  his  attempt  to  fly  from 
the  scene.  You  will  learn  that  in  the  scene  and 
not  beyond  it  is  the  true  secret  of  rest.  Your  own 
burden  will  fall  in  the  very  act  of  lifting  your 
brother's.  In  the  realisation  that  the  weight  is 
universal,  it  will  cease  to  be  particular.  In  the 
sense  that  you  are  bearing  a  common  load,  you 
will  forget  everything  that  is  individual  or  un- 
common, and  in  the  midst  of  a  world  of  war  you 
w^ill  feel  a  great  calra." 

You  will  observe  that  the  main  distinction  here 
between  Brahmanism  and  Buddhism  lies  in  the 
difference  between  a  levelling  up  and  a  levelling 
down.  Brahmanism  is  essentially  a  levelling  up; 
it  teaches  emancipation  from  the  cares  of  the  world 
by  rising  into  another  world.  Buddhism  is  dis- 
tinctively a  levelling  down.  It  is  conceived  in  the 
interest  of  the  democracy.  It  proposes  a  remedy  for 
universal  man,  and  therefore  it  places  that  remedy 
within  the  reach  of  the  lowest.  It  objects  to  the 
Brahmanical  method,  because  that  method  a})peals 
only  to  the  transcendental  few.  It  feels  that  when 
you  tell  a  man  to  lose  himself  in  God,  you  tell 
him  to  do  something  which  demands  a  long  spiritual 
training,  and  presupposes  a  preliminary  education 
ill  the  divine  life.     It  perceives  that  such  a  precept 


The  Message  of  India.  147 

will  inevitably  end  in  the  privilege  of  a  caste,  and 
that  the  prize  for  self -surrender  will  be  won  by 
the  more  refined  professions.  Buddhism  aspires 
to  be  the  religion  of  the  people ;  it  seeks  a  remedy 
for  man  as  man.  It  tries  to  find  a  refuge  for  those 
wants  which  are  at  the  foot  of  the  social  ladder, 
and  which,  because  they  are  at  the  foot  of  the 
social  ladder,  belong  equally  to  all  men.  Accord- 
ingly, the  refuge  which  Buddhism  proposes  is  a 
refuge  which  can  be  sought  and  found  alike  by 
the  lowest  and  the  highest.  It  involves  no  meta- 
physical knowledge,  it  requires  no  transcendental 
flights,  it  prescribes  no  unnatural  asceticism,  i  It 
does  not  ask  an  abandonment  of  the  present  world, 
or  tlie  thought  of  it;  it  demands  rather  a  deeper 
entrance  into  the  thought  of  it.;  It  tells  the  man 
of  toil  to  look  at  his  own  toil  as  exemplified  in 
another,  the  man  of  sorrow  to  contemplate  his 
sorrow  in  the  face  of  his  brother-man.  It  tells 
him  that  by  ceasing  to  view  his  cross  as  exclusively 
a  private  possession,  it  will  cease  to  be  a  private 
possession  at  all.  It  tells  him  that  what  he  wants 
to  give  him  rest  is  not  a  diminished  but  an  in- 
creased sense  of  the  pain  of  life,  and  that  if  he  only 
widen  his  horizon  far  enough  to  embrace  the  fact  that 
grief  is  universal,  he  will  enter  into  personal  peace 
and  learn  the  secret  of  emancipation  from  care.^ 

1  For   a   full   exposition    of    these    views,   see   Hardy,   '  Manual 
of  Buddhism,'  p.  496. 


148  Mcssafjcs  of  the  Old  Beligions. 

The  system  in  modern  times  would  be  pronounced 
one  of  secularism.  It  would  be  called  the  gospel 
of  humanity  to  distinguish  it  from  any  theological 
gospel.  Without  denying  either  God  or  immor- 
tality, it  persistently  ignores  both.  It  ignores  tliem 
not  on  the  ground  of  any  rational  difficulties,  but 
simply  and  solely  on  the  ground  of  their  own 
practical  inutility,  of  their  powerlessness  to  effect 
the  redemption  of  mankind.  And  yet  I  am  far  from 
thinking  that  in  the  historical  circumstances  which 
prompted  the  rise  of  Buddliism,  it  is  adequately 
described  by  the  word  secularism.  That  it  ignored 
God  and  immortality  is  true,  but  what  God,  and 
what  immortality  ?  It  was  a  God  who  was  believed 
to  stand  to  tlie  world  in  a  relation  of  antagonism, 
an  immortality  which  was  thought  to  consist  in  the 
annihilation  of  material  life.  The  God  of  Brahman- 
ism  was  not  coextensive  with  the  universe ;  He  did 
not  embrace  in  His  being  the  works  and  ways  of 
time.  The  immortality  of  Brahmanism  was  a  life 
which  could  only  exist  by  the  destruction  of  earthly 
life;  it  had  no  place  in  the  secret  of  its  pavilion  for 
the  perpetuation  of  temporal  interests.  Against 
this  partial  Deity,  against  this  limited  immortality, 
Buddhism  raised  its  voice  in  protest.  In  that 
protest  lies  its  value;  its  so-called  secularism  is  the 
secret  of  its  power.  It  would  have  been  a  very 
different  matter  if  Buddhism  had  arisen  to  expel 
God   from    the    world ;   it   would    then    have    been 


The  Message  of  India.  1 49 

entitled  to  be  styled  atheism.  But  we  must  never 
forget  that  the  God  of  Brahma nism  was  already 
expelled  from  the  world,  and  tliat  in  the  creed  of 
the  Brahman  the  earth  as  such  was  already  without 
a  helper.  When  Buddhism  appeared,  it  appeared  to 
vindicate  a  neglected  element.  It  stood  up  to 
advocate  the  cause  of  something  which  had  been 
overlooked  in  the  scheme  of  creation — tlie  temporal 
life  of  man.  It  was  willing  to  leave  to  the  ancient 
Deity  His  original  possessions  in  a  transcendental 
heaven,  but  it  asked  to  be  allowed  the  possession 
of  a  field  wliich  had  never  been  included  within 
His  dominions.  It  demanded  the  right  to  redeem 
tlie  world  through  the  world.  It  declared  that 
there  had  been  sufficient  sacrifice  to  God,  that  the 
time  was  come  for  a  sacrifice  to  man — a  sacrifice 
which  should  be  effected  not  by  the  hands  of  any 
consecrated  priest,  but  by  the  hand  of  every  man 
stretched  out  in  aid  of  his  brother.  It  maintained 
the  doctrine  of  a  universal  priesthood,  bound  to 
accomplish  a  universal  redemption  by  the  lifting  up 
of  a  universal  burden.^ 

The  truth  is,  the  triumph  of  Buddhism  lies  in 
its  protest  against  asceticism.  That  which  gave 
it  power  over  Brahmanism  was  its  unascetic  tend- 
ency.     The    view    is    frequently    held  that   it   has 

^  Buddha's  own  personal  power  lies  in  the  belief  that  he  has 
voluntarily  submitted  to  sacrifice  in  order  to  be  in  sympathy  with 
humanity  (Hardy,  Manual  of  Buddhism,  p.  98). 


150  Messages  of  the  Old  Ildigions. 

derived  its  influence  from  the  same  root  as  mon- 
asticism;  it  has  in  fact  derived  its  influence  from 
exactly  the  opposite  root.  Monasticism  was  the 
shrinking  of  men  into  a  place  of  refuge  from  the 
conflict  of  life  and  the  burden  of  the  day ;  it  was 
essentially  a  retirement  from  the  world.  Buddhism 
was,  on  the  contrary,  a  withdrawal  from  that  retire- 
ment ;  it  was  an  effort  of  the  human  mind  to  get 
rid  of  its  isolation  from  common  things,  and  to 
mingle  once  more  in  the  pursuits  and  interest  of 
the  crowd.  The  relation  of  the  two  systems  is 
not  one  of  resemblance  but  of  contrast.  Mon- 
asticism lias  owed  its  power  to  the  worldly  nature 
of  the  age  which  has  preceded  it,  to  the  weariness 
of  minds  that  have  been  living  long  in  the  pursuit 
of  earthly  vanities.  Buddhism  has  owed  its  power 
to  the  7/;nvorldly  nature  of  the  age  which  has 
preceded  it,  to  the  fact  that  men  have  been  long 
immured  in  a  life  of  transcendentalism,  and  are 
eager  to  join  again  in  the  concourse  of  the  busy 
crowd. 

It  is  the  sacrificial  character  of  Buddhism  which 
has  blinded  the  general  reader  to  the  view  of  its 
unascetic  nature.  It  has  been  taken  for  granted 
that  a  life  which  is  sacrificial  must  of  necessity  be  a 
life  which  is  separated  from  the  world.  The  truth 
is  precisely  the  reverse,  and  one  of  the  great  mis- 
sions of  Buddhism  has  been  to  teach  us  the  reverse. 
The  life  most  full  of  sacrifice   is  not  that  of  the 


Tlie  Message  of  India.  151 

cloister  but  of  the  city.  The  heaviest  burden  which 
man  has  to  bear  is  not  the  burden  imposed  by 
solitude,  but  the  burden  laid  on  him  by  society. 
It  may  be  truly  said  that  the  most  solitary  moments 
in  the  life  of  man  are  precisely  those  moments  in 
which  he  is  least  ascetic.  He  never  realises  the 
weight  of  his  own  personality  to  such  a  profound 
desjree  as  ^Yhen  he  is  moving  in  contact  with  the 
masses  of  mankind.  It  is  true,  the  weightedness  is 
no  longer  for  self  but  for  others ;  yet  the  most 
selfish  solicitude  is  not  half  so  sacrificial.  Buddhism 
professes  to  conquer  individual  pain,  but  it  professes 
to  conquer  it  by  imparting  to  the  individual  the 
sense  of  a  universal  pain.  It  has  been  said  that 
the  aim  of  Buddhism  is  the  extinction  of  desire; 
this  is  a  mistake.  The  aim  of  Buddhism  is  the  ex- 
tinction only  of  indiviclual  desire,  and  it  proposes 
to  extinguish  it  by  a  higher  and  a  wider  desire. 
Buddhism,  in  short,  offers  to  the  world  a  new  remedy 
for  individual  pain — a  remedy  which  in  its  nature 
is  homoeopathic,  and  which  cures  by  an  application 
resembling  the  old  disease.  That  remedy  is  love 
— itself  a  sensation  of  pain,  and  itself  a  source  of 
sacrifice.  By  the  entrance  into  the  love  of  humanity, 
Buddhism  suggests  the  possibility  of  entering  into 
a  life  which  shall  be  sacrificial  because  it  is  not 
ascetic,  and  which  shall  give  to  the  individual  man 
a  greater  power  to  bear,  precisely  because  it  shall 
free  him  from  the  contemplation  of  his  own  burden. 


152  3ffs.m/es  of  the  Old  lidigionS. 

There  is  another  point  in  which  I  differ  somewhat 
from  the  popular  estimation  of  Buddhism.  It  is 
universally  said  to  be  a  pessimistic  system.  In  a 
certain  sense  this  is  true ;  but  in  what  sense  ?  In 
the  same  sense  in  wliich  Moliammedanism  may  be 
said  to  be  a  sensuous  religion.  No  man  could  deny 
that  Mohammedanism  allows  a  latitude  to  morals 
which  would  not  be  suffered  1)y  Christianity.  Yet 
the  man  who  would  therefore  state  that  the  aim  of 
Mohammedanism  was  to  found  a  religiou  which 
should  minister  to  the  lusts  of  human  nature,  would 
be  stating  an  untruth.  IMohammedanism  was  in- 
tended to  be,  and  actually  succeeded  in  being,  a 
reform  in  morals.  It  came  to  curtail  tlie  licences 
and  the  excesses  of  mankind.  It  stopped  short  of  a 
thorough  reform,  and  arrested  itself  before  it  had 
reached  the  total  extermination  of  licence;  but  what 
it  left  unexpunged  cannot  be  laid  to  its  charge.  It 
belongs  to  that  old  regime  which  the  religion  of  the 
Prophet  came  to  circumvent,  and  it  ought  to  be 
viewed  rather  as  the  survival  of  a  past  culture  than 
as  a  result  of  the  new  system.  The  legitimate  fruit 
of  Mohammedanism  was  the  excess  which  it  suc- 
ceeded in  diminishing ;  it  is  only  indirectly  answer- 
able for  the  abuses  which  it  has  been  too  weak  to 
abolish. 

Now%  precisely  analogous  to  this  is  the  position  of 
Buddhism.  Still  less  than  the  religion  of  Mohammed 
is  it  an  original  system.     It  was  the  child  of  Brah- 


The  Message  of  India.  153 

manism,  and  therefore  it  was  the  heir  to  an  estate 
of  misery.  Brahraanism  was  essentially  the  relif>ion 
of  despair.  It  liad  no  hope  whatever  for  the  present 
world,  and  it  made  no  effort  to  redeem  it ;  its  only 
hope  was  to  he  redeemed  from  it.  The  future  to 
which  it  looked  forward  was  a  personal  annihilation 
— a  state  in  which  the  soul  should  be  freed  not  only 
from  every  remembrance  of  the  earth,  but  from  every 
earthly  form  and  human  embodiment.  As  the  child 
of  such  a  mother,  Buddhism  came  by  nature  into  an 
inheritance  of  pessimism.  Yet  it  must  be  confessed 
that  she  did  not  accept  that  inheritance  without 
modification.  Her  whole  aim  was  to  improve  it. 
Her  leading  purpose  was  the  reverse  of  pessimistic ; 
it  was  the  attempt  to  find  a  break  in  the  cloud  of 
Brahmanism.  Buddhism  started  on  her  path  with 
the  determination  to  discover  in  the  world  itself  a 
ground  for  hope.  I  do  not  know  what  views  she 
had  about  the  state  beyond  the  world.  Her  idea] 
was  a  paradise  called  Nirvana.  Whether  in  the 
future  state  it  meant  annihilation  or  merely  rest,  I 
cannot  say ;  the  most  eminent  Eastern  schoLars  arc 
still  on  this  point  divided.^  But  the  point  for  us  to 
observe  is  that,  in  the  original  view  of  the  Buddhist, 
the  attainment  of  Nirvana  was  not  limited  to  a 
future  state;    it  might  be  reached  here  and  now. 

^  See,  for  example,  on  the  one  side  Max  Miiller,  'Buddhaghosha's 
Parables,'  xxxix.-xlv. ;  on  the  other  Gogerly,  '  Journal  of  the  Roy  a] 
Asiatic  Society,'  Ceylon  Branch,  1867-1870,  Part  i.  p.  130. 


154  Messages  of  the  Old  Helir/ions. 

In  Biiddhisin,  as  in  Christianity,  there  comes  a 
message  of  peace  on  earth  and  goodwill  to  men — of 
peace  on  earth  heccmse  of  goodwill  to  men.  There 
comes  a  message  to  the  individual  soul  that,  by 
fixing  its  thoughts  upon  the  universal  sorrow,  its 
own  troubles  will  melt  away.  This  is  the  prospect 
of  a  present  heaven,^  of  a  life  of  rest  which  is  to  be 
reached  in  the  earthly  sphere,  and  to  be  reached 
through  the  very  struggles  which  the  earthly  sphere 
involves.  A  religion  wdiich  could  formulate  such  a 
doctrine  may  be  secular  indeed,  but  cannot  be  wholly 
pessimistic.  It  must  have  in  it  something  beyond 
pessimism,  something  which  recognises  a  silver  lining 
in  the  cloud,  and  which,  through  the  present  gloom, 
discerns  the  coming  day. 

I  arrive,  then,  at  this  conclusion  :  There  is  in  Bud- 
dhism an  element  of  pessimism  and  an  element  of 
optimism ;  but  the  element  of  pessimism  is  derived, 
the  element  of  optimism  is  original.  The  former 
is  the  fruit  of  her  parentage ;  it  is  received  by 
inheritance  from  Brahmanism.  The  latter  is  the 
result  of  her  own  native  energy,  and  is  the  attempt 
to  modify  the  natural  conditions  of  her  life.  Now, 
in  estimating  the  influence  of  Buddhism,  it  will  be 
necessary  to  take  into  account  both  these  elements 


^  Rhys -Davids  indeed  says  that  no  Buddhist  noiv  expects  Nirvana 
on  earth  (article  "Buddhism"  in  'Encyc.  Britan.,'  ninth  edition) ; 
it  may  be  so,  but  modern  Buddhism  makes  up  for  tliis  by  its  more 
definite  view  of  the  future. 


The  Message  of  India.  1 55 

—  the  pessimism  wliicli  she  has  derived  from  her 
parent,  and  the  optimism  which  she  has  received  from 
her  own  nature.  The  influence  of  Buddhism  has 
been  great,  yet  I  think  I  shall  be  generally  borne 
out  in  the  assertion  that  it  has  been  disappointing. 
It  has  fallen  short  of  the  claims  set  up  by  the  re- 
ligion. These  claims  were  universal;  it  aimed  at 
nothing  less  than  the  emancipation  of  mankind,  the 
redemption  of  all  sorts  and  conditions  of  men.  Has 
its  influence  been  universal  ?  has  its  effect  been 
adequate  to  its  claim  ?  Assuredly  not.  It  may 
have  embraced  numerically  a  larger  number  of  vot- 
aries than  any  other  religion,  but  numbers  are  in 
this  sphere  not  the  test  of  success.  It  may  have 
proved  the  light  of  Asia,  but  to  the  eyes  of  Europe 
it  has  presented  the  aspect  of  a  very  dim  twilight. 
The  question  is,  Why  ?  It  is  a  religion  with  a 
beautiful  theory,  a  theory  very  nearly  identical  with 
that  of  Christianity ;  why  has  Christianity  succeeded 
where  Buddhism  has  failed  ?  It  is  because  there  is 
something  in  Buddhism  which  has  prevented  the 
realising  of  its  own  theory.  And  I  think  it  will 
be  found  that  this  retarding  element  has  been  pre- 
cisely the  point  adverted  to — the  blending  of  pessi- 
mism and  optimism  in  its  constitution.  I  think  it 
will  be  found  that  the  progress  of  Buddhism  has 
been  doubly  impeded,  and  impeded  from  opposite 
sides.  It  has  been  arrested  on  the  one  hand  by  the 
natural  pessimistic  tendency  which  it  derived  from 


15G  Messages  of  tlic  Old  Ikliyions. 

its  ancestral  descent ;  it  lias  been  arrested  on  the 
other  by  that  native  optimistic  tendency  which  be- 
longed essentially  to  its  own  nature,  and  by  which 
it  strove  to  ameliorate  the  misery  which  it  had  been 
taught  to  seek  in  man. 

We  begin  with  the  former — the  pessimistic  im- 
pulse which  it  derived  from  Brahmanism.  This 
original  pessimism  is,  in  my  opinion,  one  great  source 
of  its  failure  to  realise  its  own  theory.  What  is 
that  theory  ?  It  is  the  doctrine  tliat,  by  fixing  the 
love  of  the  heart  on  universal  man,  the  burdens  of 
the  individual  heart  will  fall.  Very  good ;  but  on 
what  ground  are  we  to  fix  the  love  of  the  heart 
on  universal  man  ?  The  Buddhist  answers.  On  the 
ground  of  human  misery.  He  tells  us  that  the  mo- 
tive for  our  love  to  man  is  to  be  a  sense  of  pity — an 
impression  of  the  ntter  lielplessness,  and  the  perfect 
degradedness,  and  the  supreme  hopelessness  of  the 
life  of  the  human  community.  Now  the  question  is, 
Can  such  a  motive  lie  the  basis  of  love  ?  Is  it  pos- 
sible that  the  practical  benevolence  of  the  heart  can 
ever  take  its  rise  in  a  simple  sense  of  pity  unac- 
companied by  a  gleam  of  hope  ?  I  think  not.  In 
point  of  fact  there  is  no  instance  of  a  missionary 
effort  which  has  not  its  root  in  a  sense  of  the 
inherent  possibilities  of  the  objects  to  whom  it  is 
to  minister..  The  lower  animals  occupy  a  very 
degraded  position  in  comparison  with  man,  yet  no 
one  ever  dreamed  of  organisintr  a  mission  for  their 


The  Message  of  India.  157 

improvement.  Why  ?  Simply  because  it  is  felt  from 
the  outset  that  such  a  scheme  would  be  impossible. 
If  the  case  of  humanity  \Yere  deemed  from  the 
beginniug  as  hopeless  a  case  as  it  appears  in  Brah- 
manism,  it  is  safe  to  say  that  there  would  be  the 
utter  absence  of  any  stimulus  sufficiently  strong  to 
accomplish  the  elevation  of  human  nature.  And 
it  is  just  here  that,  as  it  seems  to  me,  the  main 
distinction  lies  between  Buddhism  and  Christianity. 
IJ^Christia^it^^^^  on  human 

nature  which  Buddhism  has  failed  to  produce,  it 
]s  because  Christianity  has  an  idea  of  the  possibil- 
ities of  man  which  Buddhism  has  failed  to  realise. 
The  religion  of  Christ  has  started  with  a  perception 
of  human  guilt  and  sin,  but  for  that  very  reason  it 
has  started  with  an  impression  of  man's  inherent 
greatness.  There  can  be  neither  guilt  nor  sin  where 
there  is  no  responsibility,  and  there  can  be  no  re- 
sponsibility where  there  is  not  power.  The  Christian 
conception  of  man  is  therefore  in  its  root  not  the 
conception  of  a  degraded  being.  He  is  contemplated 
from  the  beginning  as  one  who  occupies  a  sphere 
which  is  infinitely  below  him,  and  it  is  here  that 
his  degradation  is  supposed  to  lie.  He  is  living 
beneath  himself:  he  is  dwelling  in  a  far  country; 
he  is  subsisting  upon  food  wliich  was  only  meant 
for  swine.  The  call  which  Christianity  gi\es  to 
man  is  not  a  call  which  is  dictated  by  mere  pity; 
it  comes   ultimately  from  a  sense  of  human  possi- 


158  j\[cssages  of  the  Old  Religions. 

bility.  It  is  stimulated  by  the  belief  that  this  being, 
who  is  crushed  down  by  labour  and  heavy-laden- 
ness,  was  yet  made  for  rest,  and  has  the  capacity  to 
attain  rest.  Therefore  it  is  that  Christian  work  for 
man  has  been  so  much  more  successful  than  Bud- 
dhist work  for  man.  It  has  started  from  a  different 
basis — a  basis  of  hope.  It  has  been  prompted  by  no 
mere  sense  of  compassion,  but  by  an  impression 
that  the  object  is  worth  working  for,  and  that  the 
work  will  repay  our  pains.  It  has  been  begun  and 
continued  in  the  consciousness  that  the  life  for 
which  we  labour  is  essentially  divine,  and  that  the 
latent  divinity  within  it  shall  sooner  or  later  make 
it  great. 

But,  as  we  have  said,  there  is  another  side  to  the 
subject.  If  Buddhism  is  pessimistic  by  descent,  it 
is  optimistic  by  nature,  and  to  this  native  optimism, 
as  well  as  to  its  derived  pessimism,  has  much  of 
its  failure  been  due.  Buddhism  has  no  hope  for 
the  life  of  the  universe,  but  it  has  great  hope  for 
the  life  of  the  individual,  and  it  is  the  hope,  and 
not  the  despair,  which  impels  it.  Its  primary 
motive  is  individual  rest.  It  prescribes  work  for 
the  sake  of  Nirvana.  It  advises  each  man  to  take 
upon  himself  the  burdens  of  the  universe,  just  in 
order  that  his  own  burden  may  fall.  It  tells  him 
that,  by  lifting  the  universal  load,  his  own  weight 
shall  disappear  ;  that  when  the  sorrows  of  others 
have  cast  their  shadows  over  him,  his  sorrows  shall 


The  Message  of  India.  159 

be  buried  in  the  sea.  This  is  all  very  well  and  all 
very  true ;  but  it  is  one  thing  to  reach  it  as  an  ex- 
perience, it  is  another  and  a  very  different  thing  to 
start  with  it  as  a  theory.  Every  self-sacrificing 
man  shall  find  the  reward  of  his  sacrifice  in  the 
death  of  individual  pain ;  but  if  he  makes  that 
reward  the  motive  of  his  sacrifice,  will  it  not  lose 
its  sacrificial  character?  Buddhism,  strange  as  it 
may  seem,  is  in  one  aspect  a  selfish  creed,  as  selfish 
as  any  system  of  pleasure-seeking.  That  which  it 
seeks  is  not  pleasure,  but  only  an  absence  of  pain ; 
none  the  less  is  it  sought  for  the  sake  of  individual 
advantage.  It  aspires  to  lift  the  burdens  of  life  in 
order  that,  in  lifting  the  burdens  of  another,  each 
man  may  rest  from  his  own  labours.  This  may  be 
very  prudent  and  very  far-seeing ;  it  is  certainly 
very  optimistic.  But  is  it  in  any  real  sense  sac- 
rificial? Is  it  an  impulse  of  spontaneous  love, 
originating  in  devotion  to  humanity,  and  impelled 
by  no  other  force  than  its  intrinsic  power  ?  Is  it 
not,  on  the  contrary,  a  process  of  studied  calculation, 
in  which  benevolence  is  contemplated  with  the  view 
to  a  personal  end,  and  in  which  the  service  of  man 
is  proposed  in  the  interest  of  a  selfish  calm  ? 

Let  me  put  the  matter  in  a  nutshell.  In  an  early 
Christian  document  I  find  these  words  written  of 
the  founder  of  another  religion,  ''Who  for  the  joy 
that  was  set  before  Him  endured  the  cross,  de- 
spising the  shame."      Here  is  a  profession  of  open 


160  Messages  of  the  Old  Relujions. 

optimism.  But  let  us  observe  carefully  its  differ- 
ence from  the  Buddhist  optimism.  Christianity 
declares  that  she  is  impelled  towards  her  mission 
of  benevolence  by  a  prospective  joy.  But  what  joy  ? 
>/It  is  the  joy  of  hoping  and  believing  that  her  mission 
will  be  successful,  that  her  labour  will  be  crowned, 
that  tlie  humanity  for  which  she  toils  will  ulti- 
mately be  redeemed.  Is  that  the  Buddhist  optim- 
ism ?  It  is  the  reverse  of  that.  The  Buddhist  has 
no  hope  for  the  redemption  of  the  race ;  that  is  not 
the  joy  which  is  set  before  liim.  The  joy  which  is 
set  before  him  is  the  prospect  of  emancipation  from 
IKvsonal  care.  The  hope  which  impels  him  towards 
benevolence  is  the  hope  that,  in  pursuit  of  the  uni- 
versal burden,  the  sense  of  individual  want  shall 
be  forgotten,  and  the  soul  of  the  individual  man 
shall  enter  into  iSTirvana.  Christianity  is  hopeful; 
Buddliism  is  hopeful  also,  but  it  is  not  hopeful 
likewise.  The  hope  of  Christianity  is  the  prospect 
of  a  redeemed  world ;  the  hope  of  Buddhism  is  the 
search  for  a  Stoic's  calm  through  the  sense  that  the 
world  is  incapable  of  being  redeemed.  And  the 
reward  of  each  has  been  proportionate  to  its  aim. 
Christianity  lias  spread  its  light  over  a  sea  of  wave 
and  storm,  and  its  light  has  mingled  with  the  wave 
and  subsisted  through  the  storm.  Buddhism  has 
poured  its  beams  over  a  windless,  waveless  ocean, 
and  its  beams  have  lost  their  movement  and  entered 
into   the   ocean's   repose.      Buddhism    has    had    its 


Tlie  Message  of  India.  161 

message  for  the  world — a  noble,  a  divine  message  1 
in  relation  to  the  Brahmanic  past.     But  its  message  \ 
has  long  since  been  delivered,  and  its  mission  has  I 
long  since  been  fulfilled.     It  has  no  voice  for  the 
progressive  life  of  the  West,  no  movement  witli  the  ' 
waves  of  the  modern  sea.     It  has  sought  a  Stoic's 
calm,  and   a   Stoic's   calm  has   been   its    ooal.      It 
remains  still  as  a  monument  of  noble  effort  and  a  '\ 
record  of  high  aspiration  ;  but  its  record  extends  not    \ 
beyond  the  range  of  ancient  times,  and  even  at  its 
loftiest   zenith   it   subsists   only  as    the    "Light   of 
Asia." 


162  Messages  of  the  Old  llelijions. 


CHAPTER   VII. 

THE     MESSAGE     OF    PERSIA. 

PARSis.-\r,  or  tlie  religion  of  Persia,  is  the  second 
attempt  of  the  ancient  world  to  explain  the  great 
problem  of  human  suffering.  All  religions  of  the 
world,  whether  ancient  or  modern,  have  had  their 
rise  in  an  effort  to  explain  that  problem.  Even  the 
unspeculative  mind  of  China  was  induced  to  con- 
struct a  religion  by  a  sense  of  the  social  difficulties 
which  prevailed  in  the  natural  state  of  man.  But 
China  did  not  encounter  the  problem;  when  brought 
face  to  face  with  it  she  ran  away.  Her  whole 
system  is  based  upon  the  presentiment  that  the  evils 
of  social  life  have  their  origin  in  social  development, 
and  that  the  only  way  to  get  rid  of  these  evils  is  to 
go  back  to  a  primitive  type  having  its  roots  in  the 
far  past.  China,  accordingly,  does  not  attempt  to 
grapple  intellectually  with  the  difficulties  that  sur- 
round the  path  of  man.  She  is  content  to  leave 
these  difficulties  unsolved.  Her  whole  eftbrt  is  to 
avoid  them,  to  get  into  a  state  of  life  where  they  do 


The  Message  of  Persia.  163 

not  exist;  and  she  believes  that  she  will  compass 
this  aim  by  retracing  her  steps  into  a  region  of 
primitive  simplicity  over  which  the  forms  of  subse- 
quent civilisation  exei  t  no  power. 

It  is  to  India  that  we  must  look  for  the  first  de- 
liberate effort  to  face  the  problem  of  human  suffer- 
ing. We  have  seen  how,  in  India,  the  awakening  to 
that  problem  was  somewhat  slow.  We  have  seen 
how  her  earliest  view  of  life  was  rose-coloured,  and 
therefore  false.  We  have  seen  how  she  started  witli 
the  belief  that  tliis  world  is  a  pleasure-ground,  a 
place  where  men  are  put  to  sport  and  play.  And 
we  have  seen  how  this  belief  \vas  broken  into  frao;- 
ments  by  the  stern  facts  of  experience.  India  woke 
from  her  delusion  to  an  even  exaggerated  view  of 
the  misery  of  life.  She  passed  from  an  unqualified 
optimism  into  an  unrelieved  pessimism,  an  antag- 
onism to  things  as  they  are.  Unlike  the  Chinese 
empire,  she  did  not  Hy  back  from  the  shadow^  that 
she  liad  conjured;  she  prepared  to  meet  it,  to  face 
it  —  if  possible,  to  account  for  it.  She  felt,  and 
rightly  felt,  that  when  an  evil  is  explained,  one  half 
of  its  sting  has  vanished.  Accordingly  India  set 
herself  to  explain  this  evil.  She  accomplished  her 
objVct  in  a  manner  satisfactory  to  herself,  and  by  a 
method  short  and  easy.  She  had  found  the  optim- 
ism of  life  to  be  a  delusion ;  she  decided  that  its 
pessimism  was  also  a  delusion.  She  came  to  the 
conclusion  that  earthly  life,  as  such,  did  not  exist — 


1 64  Messages  of  the  Old  Religions. 

that  everything  in  this  worhl  below  was  but  part  of 
a  dream.  This  life  which  man  calls  human  was  in 
reality  the  dream  of  God.  The  divine  Spirit  liad 
passed  into  a  state  of  sleeping  consciousness;  in 
which  the  images  and  forms  were  unreal,  and  in 
which  the  most  tangible  experiences  were  but 
shadows  of  the  night.  This  world  was  a  vain  show, 
an  appearance,  an  illusion.  The  only  reality  was 
that  which  dwelt  behind  it,  and  that  which  dwelt 
behind  it  was  the  Almighty.  The  dream  implied  a 
dreamer,  but  the  dreamer  could  only  be  reached  by 
the  annihilation  of  the  dream.  Things  were  not 
what  they  seemed,  and  he  who  would  attain  their 
reality  must  awake  to  the  conviction  of  their  im- 
aginary character. 

Let  us  consider,  in  passing,  the  extreme  fascination 
of  this  idea.  It  was  not  merely  fascinating  as  an 
intellectual  speculation ;  I  believe  its  main  attrac- 
tiveness lay  in  its  influence  over  the  moral  nature. 
There  are  times  in  which  we  of  modern  days  feel 
the  same  attractiveness,  experience  almost  a  wish 
that  it  might  be  true.  As  we  look  abroad  upon  the 
sin  and  sorrow  of  the  world,  as  we  contemplate  the 
apparent  inequalities  in  the  destinies  of  men,  as  we 
survey  the  misery  and  squalor  and  penury  which 
dwell  side  by  side  with  prodigal  wealth  and  lavish 
luxury,  we  ask  a  thousand  times  for  a  vindication  of 
the  justice  of  God.  At  such  seasons  the  thought 
sometimes   enters    the  mind,  What   if   it   is   all   a 


The  Message  of  Persia.  165 

dream  ?  What  if  we  should  awake  and  find  that 
the  things  we  wept  over,  prayed  over,  agonised  over, 
had  never  any  existence  outside  our  own  imagining  ? 
What  if  those  experiences  of  life  which  suggested  a 
doubt  of  the  justice  of  God  should  be  themselves 
illusions,  apparitions  of  the  fancy,  nightmares  of  the 
sleep  ?  Would  not  the  very  thought  of  such  a 
possibility  convey  to  the  mind  a  sense  of  present 
calm,  and  suggest  at  l^ast  a  method  by  which,  in  the 
days  to  come,  the  plans  of  Omnipotence  might  be 
vindicated  ? 

Such  I  believe  to  have  been  the  moral  strength 
of  Brahmanism.  Its  mere  fantasticness  would  have 
been  against  its  continuance,  its  pronounced  specu- 
lativeness  would  have  been  adverse  to  its  popular- 
ity ;  but  its  suggestion  to  the  trembling  heart  was 
the  secret  of  its  power.  It  held  out  to  the  hour 
of  trouble  the  idea  that  the  trouble  was  an  illusion. 
It  told  Job  that  his  sufterings  were  inflicted  by 
his  own  imagination,  and  that  the  Being  whom  he 
blamed  for  them  had  never  once  extended  an  aggres- 
sive hand.  In  stimulating  such  a  belief,  Brahman- 
ism did  something  for  the  moral  life ;  it  helped  it 
to  rest  under  the  shadow  in  the  conviction  that 
the  shadow  was  no  part  of  the  divine.  Neverthe- 
less it  was  impossible  in  the  light  of  reason  that 
such  a  view  could  lom>'  maintain  itself.  It  was 
inevitable  that  a  time  should  come  in  which  men 
would  enter  on  a  deeper  questioning.     Whence  this 


166  Messages  of  the  Old  Rclifiions. 

dream,  and  whence  its  sadness  ?  Is  not  the  sorrow 
of  a  dream  as  real  as  the  sorrow  of  a  waking  lioiir 
— as  real  in  feeling,  thougli  imaginary  in  its  cause? 
Are  not  the  pains  of  the  sleeping  consciousness 
quite  as  genuine  in  their  nature,  and  sometimes  as 
hurtful  in  their  effects,  as  the  pains  of  the  outer 
life  ?  And  is  not  the  universe  as  responsible  for 
the  former  as  for  the  latter  ?  Is  it  not  specially 
responsible  for  the  former  on  the  Brahmanical 
supposition  that  this  dream  is  the  dream  of  the 
Absolute  Spirit  ?  If  it  originates  in  the  nature  of 
God,  must  there  not  in  the  universe  be  some  barrier 
to  the  nature  of  God  ?  Must  there  not  be  some- 
thing radically  wrong — wrong  at  the  core,  wrong  in 
the  essence  of  things  ?  That  which  interferes  with 
man  may  be  only  a  relative  evil ;  but  surely  that 
which  interferes  with  God  must  be  evil  absolute 
and  eternal. 

Such  was  the  question  which  at  last  was  asked 
by  a  religion  that  originally  belonged  to  the  same 
family  as  the  men  who  compiled  the  Vedas.^  At 
what  time  it  separated  itself  from  that  family  I 
cannot,  tell — whether  it  remained  behind  in  some 
old  dwelling  after  tlie  other  inmates  had  left,  or 
whether  it  itself  went  out  to  seek-  a  dwelling  more 
commodious  than  theirs.     l)e  this  as  it  may,  we  do 

^  lu  proof  of  this  see  Max  Miiller's  "Last  Results  of  the  Persian 
Researclies, "  as  reported  in  Bunsen's  '  Philosophy  of  Universal  His- 
tory,' i.  112  ;  also  Spiegel,  '  Avesta,'  1-5  :  Leipzig,  1852. 


The  Message  of  Persia.  167 

know  that  ultimately  this  religion,  which  we  now 
call  Parsism,  assumed,  under  the  name  of  a  dis- 
tinguished prophet,  an  attitude  of  antagonism  to 
the  old  Brahmanic  faitli.  That  prophet  was  Zoro-'' 
aster.  Carlyle  has  said  that  great  men  have  short 
biographies;  Zoroaster  has  no  biography  at  all. 
He  comes  to  us  like  a  shadow,  and  like  a  shadow 
he  goes.  There  has  gathered  round  his  name  a 
series  of  sacred  writings  whose  latest  echoes  have 
come  down  to  us  in  a  collected  form  under  tlie 
title  of  the  'Avesta.'^  But  the  figure  round  whom 
they  gather  is  a  veiled  figure.  God  is  said  to 
have  concealed  from  the  Hebrews  the  body  of 
Moses ;  He  has  concealed  from  all  men  the  bodily 
life  of  Zoroaster.  Wlio  was  the  man  ?  AVhat  was 
his  ancestry  ?  Where  was  his  birthplace  ?  When 
was  his  era  ?  ^  Did  he  live  in  the  thirteenth  cen- 
tury of  the  old  world,  or  did  he  live  in  its  sixth 
century,  or  did  he  ever  live  at  all  ?  All  these 
questions  have  been  asked  and  have  been  vari- 
ously answered.  That  Zoroaster  did  live  at  some 
time  is  almost  certain ;  that  he  flourished  some- 
what contemporaneously  with  Buddha  is  highly 
probable ;  beyond  this  nothing  can  be  known  of 
tlie  man   as   a  personality.     We  are   made  to  feel 

1  Translated  with  commentary  by  Pi'ofessor  De  Harlez.  Second 
ed.,  Pari.s,  1881. 

-  See  a  list  of  the  conflicting  testimonies  with  i-espect  to  his  age 
in  Dr  John  Wilson,  'The  Parsi  Religion,'  pp.  398-400:  Bombay, 
1843. 


1G8  Messages  of  the  Old  Religions. 

that  he  fills  a  gap  in  history,  but  he  fills  it  in- 
visibly. We  are  sometimes  conscious  that  tliere  is 
a  presence  in  the  room  even  where  there  is  no 
sight  and  no  sound.  Some  such  sensation  we  ex- 
perience in  contemplating  the  presence  of  Zoro- 
aster. We  see  him  not,  we  hear  him  not,  yet  we 
feel  that  he  occupies  a  space  wliich  naturally 
would  be  vacant,  and  therefore  we  know  that  lie 
is  there. 

What  is  the  filling  of  this  space  wliich  is  occu- 
pied by  Zoroaster?  What  is  the  nature  of  that 
7  message  wdiich  he  is  supposed  to  have  given  to 
the  world,  and  which  appears  in  the  writings  that 
have  circled  round  his  name  ?  As  1  have  indicated, 
it  strikes  a  note  which  was  neglected  by  the  Indian 
Pantheon.^  That  neglected  note  was  the  reality 
of  an  obstructive  element  in  nature.  The  Indian 
religion,  in  all  its  phases,  denied  this  obstructive 
element.  Brahmanism  took  a  gloomy  view  of  the 
world,  but  she  held  her  own  view  to  be  a  delusion. 
Human  life  was  in  her  eye  a  sad  and  imperfect 
thing,  but  human  life  was  at  the  same  time  to  her 
an  unreality.  It  was  a  dream,  an  illusion,  a  vision 
of  the  niglit,  a  phantom  in  the  brain  of  a  higher 
life — the  Absolute  Spirit  itself.  All  the  sorrows 
of  existence  were  but  stirrings  in  the  sleep  of  ±he 

^  The  antagonism  appears  in  the  fact  that  many  of  the  gods  of 
India  are  the  devils  of  Parsism.  See  Pi-ofessor  K.  Geldner,  article 
"Zoroaster,"  '  Encycloprcdia  Britannica,'  nintli  edition. 


The  Message  of  Persia.  169 

Almighty,  partial  interruptions  of  that  rest  which 
the^  Divine  Life  had  enjoyed  fj'om  of.  old.  Zoro- 
aster asked,  Whence  this  interruption  ?  He  said, 
"  If  there  be  in  the  universe  something  which  can 
interrupt  the  stream  of  the  Divine  Life,  that  some- 
thing must  be  itself  not  only  outside  of  the  Divine, 
but  equal  to  it  in  power.  That  which  can  oppose 
God  must  be  not  only  alien  to  God,  but  possessed 
of  an  alien  strength.  If  this  life  be  a  dream  of 
the  Absolute  Life,  whence  comes  the  dream  ?  ShaU 
you  say  that  the  stream  of  the  Divine  vitality  is 
inadequate  to  supply  the  whole  course  of  its  way  ? 
Is  it  possible  that  God  in  Himself  should  faint 
or  grow  weary  ?  And  if  He  does  faint  and  grow 
weary,  must  there  not  be  some  other  than  Himself  ? 
Must  there  not  be  in  the  universe  some  element 
obstructive  to  the  Divine  —  an  element  which  is 
strong  enough  to  oppose  the  Absolute  AVill,  and 
powerful  enough  to  paralyse  its  operations  ? " 

This  in  effect  was  the  question  of  Zoroaster.  He 
felt,  and  rightly  felt,  that  it  is  no  explanation  of 
the  feeling  of  suffering  to  say  that  it  is  a  sensation 
in  a  dream — that  the  problem  will  always  remain, 
Whence  arose  this  dream  ?  He  felt  that  Brahman- 
ism  had  stopped  short  of  the  ultimate  inquiry,  that 
she  really  escaped  no  difficulties  which  her  system 
was  designed  to  escape.  Accordingly  Zoroaster  stood 
forth  in  the  midst  of  the  universe,  and  declared  that 
tliere  was  something  wrong  in  it.     He  proclaimed 


^ 


170  Messages  of  the  Old  Belirjions. 

in  stentorian  tones  that  there  was  a  crack  in  the 
machine,  and  a  crack  from  the  beginning.  This  is 
the  first  note  of  his  message  to  tlie  world.  I  shall 
show  in  tlie  next  chapter  that  it  involves  other  and 
deeper  notes,  and  shall  endeavour  to  estimate  the 
value  of  that  thought  which  he  revealed.  But 
meantime  I  wish  to  mark  the  fact  that  this  message 
of  Zoroaster  is  the  first  deliberate  and  systematic 
testimony  given  by  the  Aryan  religious  consciousness 
to  the  existence  of^sin.^  Commonplace  as  it  sounds 
to  the  modern  ear,  it  was  to  the  ancient  ear  very 
nearly  a  paradox.  It  struck  a  chord  which,  almost 
in  its  subject  and  altogether  in  its  intensity,  was 
new.  Hitherto  the  ancient  world  had  been  directed 
either  by  the  terrible,  the  beautiful,  or  the  specula- 
tive. Men  had  worshipped  from  fear;  they  had 
worshipped  from  admiration ;  they  had  worshipped 
from  philosophic  instinct.  They  were  now  to  be 
directed  to  a  new  source  of  adoration — the  testi- 
mony of  conscience.  In  Zoroaster  the  Aryan  race 
opened  its  eyes  upon  the  great  problem  of  morality 
— the  fact  of  sin.  In  a  more  pronounced  sense  than 
even  Judaism,  Parsism  emphasised  the  power  of 
moral  evil.  AVith  the  Jew  there  is  always  in  the 
background   a  conviction,  half   latent  and   half  ex- 

^  Professor  Wilson  has  pointed  out  that,  although  there  are  a 
few  exceptions,  the  large  majority  of  the  Vedic  prayers  are  for 
purely  temporal  blessings,  and  that  the  moral  consciousness  is 
mostly  in  abeyance  (Lectures,  pp.  9,  10.      Oxford,  1840^\ 


The  Message  of  Persia.  171 

pressed,  that  sin,  with  all  its  liorrors,  has  still  been 
made  the  servant  of  God,  been  compelled  against 
its  will  to  minister  to  the  divine  purposes.  But 
in  Parsism  no  such  accommodation  is  either  im- 
plied or  permitted.  Sin  stands  out  not  only  as 
the  enemy  of  God,  as  it  does  in  Judaism,  but  as  a 
frustrator  of  the  plan  of  jGi^h  A  Jew  would  never 
liave  admitted  tliat  anything  could  frustrate  God's 
plan ;  to  him  the  wrath  of  the  wicked  itself  was 
made  to  praise  God.  But  to  the  follower  of  Zoro- 
aster every  evil  deed  was  for  ever  outside  the  gates 
of  the  divine  kingdom.  The  acts  of  luunan  sin 
could  never  be  made  stoii.es  in  the  temple  of  holi- 
ness. The  development  of  goodness  could  only  be 
promoted  by  goodness ;  there  was  no  possibility  of 
things  evil  being  made  to  work  together  for  a  higher 
goal.  The  stream  which  flowed  from  the  fountain 
of  wickedness  was  a  stream  which  never  mingled 
with  the  waters  of  the  pure  sea ;  it  held  on  its 
desolating  w^ay  independent  and  alone. 

For  it  is  the  doctrine  of  Zoroaster  that  this  uni- 
verse is  not  the  work  of  a  single  being ;  it  is  the 
work  of  two.  It  has  come  from  the  hands  both  of 
a  Principle  of  good  and  of  a  Principle  of  evil.  This 
world  has  been  made  by  two  agents,  Ormuzd  and 
Ahriman.  Ormuzd  is  the  principle  of  good.  He  is 
en) bodied  in  the  light,  which  is  at  once  His  garment 
and  His  symbol.  He  is  the  source  of  all  beauty, 
the  fountain  of  all  purity,  the  origin  of  all  morality ; 


172  Messages  of  the  Old  Religions. 

from  Him  cometh  down  every  good  and  every  perfect 
gift.  Ahriman  is  the  principle  of  evil.  His  embodi- 
ment is  the  darkness,  and  this  also  both  clothes  and 
symbolises  him.  He  is  the  source  of  all  deformity, 
the  fountain  of  all  vileness,  the  origin  of  every  vio- 
lation of  moral  law ;  from  him  ascend  those  foul 
vapours  which  disturb  the  atmosphere  of  the  world. 
Between  these  two  agencies  the  life  of  the  universe 
is  divided.  TJiere  are  angels  of  light,  and  there  are 
angels  of  darkness — the  one  obeying  the  will  of 
Ormuzd,  the  other  following  the  behests  of  Ahriman. 
The  creatures  beneath  the  angelic  line  are  not  sep- 
arated by  so  hard-and-fast  a  division.  Some  have 
more  of  Ormuzd  in  them,  some  have  more  of  Ahri- 
man—  all  have  something  of  both.  This  world, 
therefore,  instead  of  being  a  dream,  is  a  stern, 
^  waking  battle-field,  in  which  two  comp)etitors_con- 
tend  for  empire.  It  is  in  all  its  parts  a  struggle 
between  light  and  darkness,  in  which  light  strives 
to  expel  darkness,  and  darkness  labours  to  exclude 
light.  The  struggle  reaches  its  climax  in  man. 
Man  is  the  microcosm  of  the  universe.  In  him 
the  forces  that  elsewhere  play  on  a  large  scale  at 
once  diminish  their  scale  and  increase  their  in- 
tensity. Here  Ormnzd  and  Ahriman  meet  in  their 
deadliest  conflict.  Man,  like  everything  else,  has 
in, him  something  of  both;  but,  because  he  is  man, 
he  has  more  of  both  than  all  other  things.  The 
struggle  in  him  is  therefore  at  the  fiercest.      One 


The  Message  of  Persia.  173 

part  of  his  nature  is  overshadowed  by  the  darkness, 
the  other  is  basking  in  the  light.  His  soul  is  the 
battle-field  between  two  competitors,  and  night  and 
day  the  struggle  is  maintained  with  alternating  suc- 
cess and  with  unvaried  fury. 

What  is  man's  own  part  in  this  conflict  I  shall 
consider  in  the  next  chapter.  In  the  meantime  I 
want  to  ask,  What  position  does  this  doctrine  hold 
in  the  development  of  the  religious  consciousness  ? 
That  it  is  unscientific  is  beyond  a  doubt.  That  this  /_ 
world  is  the  work  of  two  principles  is  an  idea  which 
was  too  crude  even  for  Brahmanism,  and  which  is 
incompatible  with  the  modern  standpoints  of  evolu- 
tion ;  though,  singularly  enough,  something  very  like 
it  has  been  promulgated  in  our  day  by  one  of  the 
greatest  English  thinkers — Mr  J.  S.  Mill.^  Waiv- 
ing, however,  this  point,  and  conceding  the  unscien- 
tific character  of  the  system,  the  question  remains, 
What  is  its  moral  bearing  ?  At  first  sight  it  might 
seem  to  indicate  a  religious  decline.  When  we  hear 
of  a  God  whose  power  is  limited  by  another  power, 
our  earliest  impression  is  that  we  stand  in  the  pres- 
ence of  a  low  spiritual  life.  But  if  we  look  deeper, 
and  specially  if  we  consider  the  historical  circum- 
stances of  Parsism,  we  shall,  in  this  case  at  least, 
come  to  an  opposite  conclusion.  We  have  been 
taught  from  childhood  to  praise  the  choice  of  Solo- 
mon— to  admire   that  state  of  mind  which   could 

^  See  his  posthumous  essay  on  Theism. 


174  Messages  of  the  Old  Bell j ions. 

prefer  the  treasures  of  wisdom  to  tlie  treasures  of 
wealth.  But  now  imagme  that  this  narrative  had 
been  presented  to  us  in  another  form.  Let  us  sup- 
pose that  before  the  eyes  of  Solomon  there  liad 
floated  the  alternative  of  a  choice  not  between  wis- 
dom and  wealth  in  the  abstract,  but  between  wisdom 
and  wealth  in  the  nature  of  God.  Let  us  conceive 
that  in  some  critical  hour  it  had  been  revealed  to 
him  that  the  constitution  of  this  universe  could  no 
longer  be  deemed  compatible  with  the  existence  both 
of  perfect  power  and  of  perfect  love,  and  that  it 
would  be  necessary  for  him  to  give  up  from  his  creed 
either  the  one  or  the  other.  Let  us  suppose  that  in 
these  circumstances  Solomon  had  decided  to  hold  by 
tlie  ideal  of  perfect  love,  whatever  else  might  go; 
what  would  our  impression  be  of  such  a  choice? 
Would  it  not  be  that  the  man  had  displayed  a  won- 
derful amount  of  moral  insight  ?  Should  we  not 
deem  that,  in  preferring  morality  to  physical  strength, 
he  had,  for  an  Eastern,  reached  a  remarkable  heiglit 
of  development,  and  a  height  which  was  altogether 
above  the  ordinary  level  of  his  nation — a  nation 
which  habitually  measured  a  man's  moral  purity 
precisely  by  the  ratio  of  his  outward  and  physical 
prosperity  ? 

Xow,  the  case  of  Zoroaster  is  exactly  parallel  to 
this.  He  lived  in  an  age  when  men  had  come  to 
realise  the  difficulties  of  human  life  and  the  arduous- 
ness  of  the  struggle  for  existence.     The  problem  of 


The  Message  of  Persia.  175 

divine  Providence  had  pressed  upon  his  soul.  It  had 
become  clear  to  him  that,  with  his  present  amount 
of  knowledge,  he  must  adopt  one  or  other  of  two 
alternatives :  he  must  either  hold  that  the  Author  of 
the  universe  was  imperfectly  good,  or  that  He  was 
imperfectly  powerful.  It  was  the  clioice  of  Solo- 
moii~repeated,  but  repeated  in  the  nature  of  God. 
Zoroaster  was  asked  not  to  choose  between  morality 
and  wealth  for  himself,  but  between  morality  and 
wealth  for  his  Creator.  Without  hesitation  he  chose 
morality.  He  had  every  Eastern  incentive  to  do  the 
contrary.  He  was  the  member  of  an  empire  whose 
tastes  and  aims  were  physical — an  empire  which  had 
set  before  itself  the  ideal  of  outward  conquest  as  the 
highest  goal  of  kinghood,  and  which  was  prosecuting 
that  ideal  with  unflinching  pertinacity.  Would  it 
have  been  surprising  if  a  man  trained  in  such  a 
school  should  have  preferred  the  physical  to  the 
mental,  and  should  have  deemed  that  attribute  most 
divine  which  expressed  most  of  sensuous  power  ? 
And  when,  in  his  hour  of  crisis,  in  which  he  was 
called  to  choose  between  God's  omnipotence  ancL_His 
holiness,  he  made  his  choice  in  favour  of  the  latter, 
what  can  we  think  of  such  a  decision  ?  What  but 
that  the  man  who  made  it  was  far  advanced  in  the 
spiritual  life  above  the  measure  of  his  contempo- 
raries ?  Is  not  his  choice  a  declaration  that  to  him 
the  grandest  thing  about  God  is  not  that  which  men 
have  hitherto  worshipped — that  the  tiling  which  he 


17G  Messages  of  the  Old  Religions. 

deems  most  di\  ine  is  not  the  thunder  and  tiie  earth- 
quake and  the  tire  of  sensuous  majesty,  but  the  still, 
small  voice  which  preaches  purity  of  heart  ?  He  has 
before  him  the  alternatives  of  a  God  of  limited  miglit 
and  a  God  of  limited  love,  and  without  hesitation  he 
takes  the  former.  Does  he  not  thereby  declare  that 
for  him  the  worshipful  element  of  the  universe  is  not 
sense  but  soul,  not  height  but  heart,  not  depth  but 
desire,  not  power  but  purity  ? 

And  if  he  did  exaggerate  the  power  of  evil,  if  he 
did  invest  the  awful  fact  of  sin  with  an  importance 
too  great  even  for  itself,  let  us  remember  his  pro- 
vocation. Zoroaster  was  a  protestant — a  man  who 
X  protested  against  an  existing  state  of  things.  The 
first  protestants  always  exaggerate ;  they  have  no 
choice  but  to  do  so.  The  very  fact  that  they  are  the 
earliest  on  the  field  of  battle  causes  them  to  strike 
more  vehemently.  Luther  went  too  far  in  justifica- 
tion by  faith ;  Calvin  went  too  far  with  the  divine 
decrees ;  Knox  went  too  far  ih  his  opposition  to 
images ;  and  Zoroaster  went  too  far  in  his  estimate 
of  the  power  of  sin.  He  attributed  its  influence  to 
the  agency  of  a  Force  which  was  strong  enough  to 
compete  with  God,  and  in  that  he  doubtless  erred. 
But  into  that  error  he  was  provoked  by  a  still  gi^eater 
error  on  the  other  side.  The  Brahman  had  said  that 
moral  evil  was  a  dream,  that  the  sins  and  sorrows 
of  life  were  but  the  fantastic  and  illusory  images  of 
the  sleeping  brain.     Zoroaster  was  roused  into   the 


'     The  Message  of  Persia.  177 

opposite  extreme.  He  declared  them  to  be  not  only 
real  but  eternal  realities,  part  and  parcel  of  the  con- 
stitution of  the  universe.  His  vindication  for  such 
a  statement  is  the  fact  of  his  protestantism.  He 
was  the  first  in  the  history  of  Aryan  religions  who 
was  called  to  make  a  stand  in  favour  of  the  claims 
of  conscience.  He  made  that  stand  against  heavy 
odds — against  intellectual  abstractions  which  had 
buried  the  instincts  of  the  heart,  against  nature- 
worship  which  had  exalted  power  over  morality, 
acrainst  an  ideal  of  heroism  which  had  substituted 
the  strength  of  the  body  for  the  beauty  of  the 
soul.  If,  in  gainsaying  this  practice  of  long  an- 
tiquity, he  said  too  much  and  went  too  far,  his 
excess  was  itself  the  result  of  his  moral  bias,  and 
the  exaggeration  of  his  doctrine  was  the  propliecy 
of  a  larjijer  life. 


M 


178  ^fessages  of  tlte  Old  Belvjions. 


CHAPTER    VIII. 


CONTINUATION. 


"VVe  have  now  arrived  at  a  paradox.  We  have  seen 
]iow  the  foregoing  religious  systems  arose  out  of  an 
eirort  to  grapple  with  some  burden  of  life.  Parsisni 
also  arose  from  an  effort  to  grapple  with  life's 
burdens.  But  Parsism,  unlike  the  foregoing  re- 
ligions, ended  by  adding  a  new  burden.  Like 
Buddhism,  it  approached  the  problem  of  this  world 
with  a  view  to  emancipate  the  human  mind  from 
tlie  weight  of  its  sufferings.  Yet  the  conclusion 
to  whicli  it  came  was  very  different  froui  that  of 
Buddhism.  Buddhism  proposed  that  the  individual 
should  emancipate  himself  by  taking  up  the  cares 
of  the  race.  Parsism  discovered  that  the  deepest 
sufferings  of  life  came  from  a  burden  which  ori- 
ginated  in  the  individual  alone  —  a  burden  which 
in  its  nature  was  untransferable,  wdiich  a  man 
might  pity  and  sympathise  with,  but  could  not  lift 
from  the  shoulders  of  his  brother.  That  burden 
was  sin.     To  the  mind  of  Zoroaster  moral  evil  was 


The  Message  of  Persia.  179 

the  root  of  all  evil,  and  moral  evil  belonged  to  the 
individual  man.  In  assigning  this  as  the  cause  of 
human  suffering,  he  deepened  the  weight  already 
pressing  on  humanity.  One  would  have  thought 
that  the  effect  would  have  been  to  crush  still  more 
utterly  the  development  of  the  human  mind.  In 
the  preceding  Aryan  races,  that  development  had 
already  been  almost  entirely  suppressed.  The  will 
of  man  had  sunk  into  lethargy  beneath  the  weight 
of  a  mystery  which  it  could  neither  shake  of!'  nor 
explain,  and  the  waters  of  human  life  had  become  a 
Dead  Sea.  The  impartation  of  an  additional  burden 
might  seem  to  have  only  completed  the  process,  and 
to  have  effected  the  final  extinction  of  that  spirit 
whose  powers  had  been  already  prostrated. 

Yet,  strange  to  say,  the  effect  was  the  reverse, 
and  it  is  just  here  that  the  paradox  arises.  Parsism, 
in  adding  to  the  existing  burdens  the  new  burden 
of  sin,  seemed  to  have  put  the  final  stone  upon  the 
sepulchre  of  man.  In  reality  it  began  the  process 
of  his  resurrection.  For  the  first  time  in  the 
history  of  Aryanism,  the  human  mind,  in  the  re- 
ligion of  Zoroaster,  breaks  forth  into  spontaneity. 
The  sleep  of  ages  appears  to  pass  away,  and  there 
begins  an  age  of  vital  and  of  waking  activity. 
India  had  no  history,  because  one  day  was  the 
same  as  another,  and  every  event  was  but  an 
illusion.  In  Persia,  history  in  the  Aryan  world 
may  be  said  to  have  begun.     Here  the  letharcrv  of 


180  Messages  of  the  Old  Religions, 

ages  is  broken,  and  man  breaks  forth  into  the 
activity  of  outward  life.  In  Persia  we  see  the 
anticipation  of  Eome.  We  see  a  nation  aiming 
at  wideness  of  dominion,  not  so  much  by  crushing 
as  by  incorporating.  AVe  see  an  empire  struggling 
towards  a  headship  wliich  shall  in  some  sense 
represent  the  relation  of  the  human  head  to  the 
human  members.  The  sovereignty  of  the  Persian 
king  is  the  sovereignty  of  a  feudal  superior.  He 
does  not  seek  to  reign  alone,  he  only  desires  to 
reign  supreme.  He  allows  the  existence  of  em- 
pires within  the  empire,  of  kings  and  governors 
who  shall  have  power  within  their  own  sphere  if 
only  they  shall  acknowledge  their  common  subjec- 
tion to  himself.  It  is  a  Eoman  ideal  of  imperialism, 
because  it  is  a  Eoman  ideal  of  the  rights  of  man. 
The  Persian  has  awakened,  to  a  sense  of  freedom, 
,and  it  colours  even  his  politics.  He  moves  through 
lii story  with  a  free  step,  and  builds  his  institutions 
on  the  foundations  of  personal  liberty. 
.  Eut  the  paradox  is  still  more  marked  when  we 
turn  from  the  political  to  the  spiritual  region.  The 
creed  of  Zoroaster,  with  its  revelation  of  human  sin, 
might  have  been  expected  to  have  crushed  the  soul. 
On  the  contrary,  it  removed  the  thing  which  crushed 
it.  The  proclamation  of  the  additional  burden 
made  man  free.  The  cause  of  tlie  paradox  we  shall 
presently  consider;  in  the  meantime  we  have  to 
note  the  fact.     AYhen  the  Aryan  race  recognised  its 


The  Message  of  Persia.  181 

bondage  to  sin,  it  woke  for  the  first  time  to  a  sense 
of  freedom.^  There  dawned  within  the  spirit  of 
man  the  conviction  tliat  he  was  a  responsible  being. 
There  rose  within  him  the  thought  that  he  was  not 
a  machine,  not  a  product  of  necessity,  not  the  result 
of  an  inexorable  law.  He  began  to  feel  that  he  was 
answerable  for  his  actions.  He  ceased  to  think  of 
the  universe  as  dependent  entirely  on  one  Supreme 
Will;  he  came  to  the  belief  that  man  is  a  fellow- 
worker  with.  God.  He  felt  that  in  the  battle 
between  Ormuzd  and  Ahriman  the  human  creature 
was  not  a  mere  possession  to  be  striven  for.  The 
soul  of  man  was  itself  an  agent  in  the  strife;  it 
could  help  either  the  one  side  or  the  other.  Every 
human  act,  every  human  thought,  every  human 
confessip;!,-  every  human  aspiring,  was  a  weight 
thrown  into  the  scale,  and  made  for  either  good  or 
evil.  AYhether  it  should  make  for  good  or  evil 
depended  on  the  will  of  man,  and  for  that  will  he  ^ 
was  responsible.  Every  day  and  hour  man  was 
under  the  judgment-seat  of  God.  There  was  a  re- 
cording angel  who  was  writing  down  the  result  of 
his  every  deed  in  a  book  whose  letters  were  in- 
delible.^ At  the  hour  of  death  from  out  that  book 
there  would  be  made  a  reckoning  of  his  actions 
and   an  estimate  of  the  sum  of  them.      "When   he 

^  The  doctrine  of  human  freedom  is  clearly  expressed  in  the 
Avesta,  Yasua,  31,  11. 

^  See  Avesta,  Vendidad,  19-27. 


182  Messages  of  the  Old  Religions. 

passed  from  this  mortal  scene  lie  would  have  to 
cross  the  Accountant's  Bridge — a  structure  which 
metaphorically  represented  the  transition  from  time 
into  eternity.  Here  at  last  would  be  determined 
the  moral  import  of  his  life,  and  according  to^its 
import  its  reward  would  be.  If  the  sum  of  good 
had  outweighed  the  sum  of  evil,  he  w^ould  pass  into 
the  bright  land  of  Ormuzd.  If  the  sum  of  evil  had 
outweighed  the  sum  of  good,  h"e~vvould  travel  into 
the  dark  shades  of  Ahriman.  If  the  balance  of 
good  weighed  equally  against  the  balance  of  evil, 
he  would  be  consigned  into  a  state  intermediate 
between  sorrow  and  joy,  waiting  for  that  con- 
summation—  the  final  judgment-day  which  shall 
decide  the  fate  of  all  things. 

These  are  the  facts ;  what  is  the  interpretation  of 
them  ?     How  are  w^e  to  account  for  the  circumstance 

y  that  the  Aryan  race  first  came  to  its  sense  of  respon- 
sible freedom  when  it  realised  its  burden  of  sin  ? 
There  is  nothing  accidental  in  the  conjunction.  It 
is  the  inevitable  result  of  a  great  principle.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  man's  sense  of  powder  is  always  con- 
temporaneous with  his  sense  of  moral  humiliation. 
He  only  comes  to  tlie  recognition  of  his  dignity 
when  he  comes  to  the  realisation  of  his  depravity. 
Nowhere  does  the  fable  of  the  Phoenix  risinci;  out  of 
its  own  ashes  find  so  perfect  an  illustration  as  in  the 

?  spirit  of  man.  Tlie  first  idea  which  he  recei3:£s  of 
his  greatness  in  the  scale  of  being  is  directly  derived 


The  Message  of  Persia.  183 

from  his  expericDCG  of  moral  blame.  The  point  is 
so  suggestive,  and  at  first  sight  so  paradoxical,  as  to 
merit  a  few  moments'  consideration. 

If  it  be  asked  where  man  gets  his  sense  of  freedom, 
the  natural  tendency  is  to  answer,  "  From  the  powers 
of  his  mind."  And  yet  so  far  is  tliis  from  beincj  true, 
that  the  contrary  is  the  truth.  It  is  not  too  much 
to  say  that  it  is  from  the  exercise  of  his  intellectual 
p)owers  that  man  first  learns  the  sense  of  his  bondage. 
At  the  beginning  of  his  life  he  is  conscious  neither 
of  freedom  nor  of  necessity  ;  he  lives  as  a  plant  lives. 
He  arrives  at  the  knowledge  of  his  prison-house 
only  by  putting  forth  his  hands.  It  is  when  he 
begins  to  exert  his  powers  that  for  the  first  time  he 
learns  their  feebleness.  The  freedom  of  the  Indian 
mythology  was  but  the  freedom  of  a  child,  the 
spontaneity  that  exists  only  because  it  has  never 
experienced  the  sense  of  contradiction.  It  was  the 
infant  putting  forth  its  hand  to  catch  the  moon. 
When  the  infant  found  it  could  not  catch  the  moon, 
it  became  a  Brahman — gave  up  the  universe  as  an 
impossible  speculation.  The  Indian  mind  in  its  later 
stage  was  the  child  of  abortive  effort,  the  product  of 
a  despair  which  had  arisen  from  the  sense  of  intel- 
lectual incompetency.  In  the  search  for  universal 
knowledge  man  learns  that  he  is  a  slave. 

o 

Nor  is  the  problem  of  human  freedom  much  nearer 
to  solution  when  the  intellectual  powers  of  man 
turned  from  the  contemplation  of  nature  to  the  con- 


184  Messages  of  the  Old  Religions. 

templation  of  suffering.  This  was  the  transition 
actually  made  in  the  passage  from  Brahmanism  to 
Buddhism.  Man,  having  failed  to  make  the  intel- 
lect a  source  of  absolute  knowledge,  tried  to  make 
it  a  source  of  absolute  calm.  The  effort  was  not 
altogether  unsuccessful.  Buddhism,  as  we  have  seen, 
has  become  the  Dead  Sea  of  man.  But  even  in 
reaching  this  calm,  Buddhism  did  not  reach  the 
sense  of  freedom.  She  helped  a  section  of  mankind 
to  be  resigned  to  inevitable  law,  but  she  left  the 
law  inevitable  still.  The  triumph  of  the  human 
intellect  in  Buddhism  was  simply  the  triumph  of 
discovering  that  the  law  was  inexorable.  It  was  the 
resignation  of  the  soul  to  a  supposed  fact — the  fact  of 
human  bondage.  Man  was  deemed  to  have  reached 
the  pinnacle  of  wisdom  in  the  discovery  of  the  truth 
and  in  the  submission  to  the  knowledge  that  nothing 
is  to  be  expected  from  life;  the  mind's  charter  of 
peace  was  the  sense  that  it  could  not  be  free. 

The  human  intellect,  therefore,  has  failed  to  give 
to  the  mind  of  man  the  idea  of  its  own  liberty.  Is 
there  any  other  source  from  which  such  a  revelation 
can  arise  ?  There  is,  and,  strange  to  say,  it  is  found 
in  the  realising  of  a  new  burden — the  burden  of  sin. 
It  is  in  the  experience  of  moral  want,  and  in  the 
humiliation  incident  to  that  experience,  that  man 
reaches  the  sense  of  freedom.  What  the  intellectual 
powers  could  not  do  is  done  by  another  power — that 
state  of  mind  which  we  call  conscience.      What  is 


Tlie  Message  of  Persia,  185' 

tlie  testimony  of  conscience  ?  It  is  the  announce- 
ment that  we  have  clone  wrong.  But  what  is  implied 
in  that  announcement  ?  Strange  as  it  may  seem,  it 
contains  a  double  implication ;  it  proclaims  at  once 
the  degradation  and  the  glory  of  man.  On  the  one 
hand,  it  involves  a  feeling  of  humiliation ;  but  on 
what  ground  ?  On  the  ground  that  we  are  worthy 
of  blame.  What  is  blame  ?  It  is  the  sense  that  we 
could  have  done  better.  The  testimony  of  conscience 
is  not  merely  the  testimony  that  I  am  not  in  a  good 
state ;  that  could  be  said  of  a  withering  tree.  But 
what  conscience  tells  me  is  not  simply  that  I  am  in 
a  withering  condition,  but  that  I  have  myself  to 
thank  for  it.  It  tells  me  that,  if  I  had  done  other- 
wise, things  would  have  been  otherwise,  and  in  that 
message  it  says  that  I  am  free.  It  proclaims  that 
the  law  under  which  I  suffer  is  not  a  law  of  neces-, 
sity — that  I  had  power,  if  I  willed,  to  shake  it  off  and 
to  walk  forth  in  freedom.  I  am  not  discussing  the 
Tightness  or  the  wrongness  of  that  testimony;  it  is 
always  open  to  the  man  of  science  to  say,  as  he  often; 
does  say,  that  it  is  a  delusion.  But  even  the  man  of 
science  will  not  deny  that,  whether  real  or  delusive,; 
it  is  there.  Whatever  be  the  value  of  its  testimony, 
conscience  does  testify  tliat  man  is  free;  the  sting  of; 
remorse  itself  is  simply  a  revelation  that  the  hurnan 
soul  has  done  its  dieeds  under  no  mechanical  neces- 
sity, but  under  the  influence  of  a  power  which  it 
was  always  within  its  province  to  control. 


18G  Mcssar/es  of  the  Old  Ildifjions. 

Xow,  it  is  here  that  tlie  strength  of  Parsism  lies. 
It  has  received  one  burden  more  than  every  other 
Aryan  faith ;  but  that  one  burden  more  is  the  moral 
conviction,  of  sin.  The  result  is  that  the  additional 
weight  has  become  a  wing,  and  the  element  whicli 
threatened  to  bring  Parsism  to  the  very  dust  of 
humiliation  has  become  tlie  means  of  its  rising  above- 
-7  all  surrounding  religions.  []X  is  not  difficult  to  trace 
the  process  by  whicli,  from  its  waking  sense  of 
human  corruption,  this  faith  has  climbed  into  the 
vision  of  an  all  liut  perfect  day.  In  the  conviction 
of  sin  it  reached  the  feeling  of  blame.  In  the 
feeling  of  bhime  it  reached  the  idea  of  responsibility. 
In  the  idea  of  responsibility  it  reached  the  belief  in 
freedom.  In  the  belief  in  freedom  it  reached  the 
knowledge  that  there  existed  within  the  universe 
a  power  called  "Will.  In  tlie  recognition  of  that 
power  it  learned,  for  the  first  time,  that  there  is  a" 
force  which  is  not  material,  but  antecedent  to  matter 
and  independent  of  its  mutations — a  force  which 
mechanical  combinations  did  not  create,  and  which 
the  dissolution  of  mechanical  combinations  needs 
not  destroy.  Finally,  from  a  vision  of  this  indepen- 
dent existence  it  reached  the  belief  in  a  personal 
immortality — an  immortality  in  which  the  individual 
should  at  once  be  preserved  and  sublimated,  lifted 
from  the  dust  of  earth,  and  intensified  by  the  life  of 
heaven,  'j 

Thus,  as  from  a  germ-cell,  there  rose  out  of  con- 


The  Message  of  Persia.  187 

"science  a  revelation  of  all  things — fr,e©4oni.  person- 
ality, God,  immortal  life.  Parsism,  bv  its  definite 
recognition  of  the  existence  of  a  moral  world,  came 
to  a  definite  recognition  of  a  world  of  religions 
thought.  But  let  ns  understand  that,  in  order  to 
realise  the  power  of  conscience,  it  was  necessary  to^ 
realise  the  power  of  sin.  It  is  because  Parsism  is 
the  religion  of  stru^crle  that  it  is  the  relidon  of 
morality  and  immortality.  Conscience  only  begins 
where  disturbance  begins ;  here  as  elsewliere,  it  is 
the  cloud  that  reveals  the  sunshine.  As  lonoj  as 
my  nature  flows  on  in  a  stream  of  uninterrupted  good, 
I  am  unconscious  even  of  the  stream.  In  order  to 
become  conscious  I  must  be  arrested  in  my  flow. 
Something  must  intervene  to  break  the  uniformness 
of  the  rhythm  of  life.  The  beauty  of  virtue  first- 
asserts  itself  when  I  liave  tried  to  violate  it ;  the' 
box  of  ointment  gets  its  fragrance  by  being  broken. 
Parsism  climbed  further  than  all  Aryan  faiths, 
because  it  struggled  more  than  all — nay,  because 
first  among  these  faiths  it  experienced  the  sense 
of  struggle.  It  was  the  child  of  moral  conflict,  and 
out  of  its  moral  conflict  came  its  revelation  of  God. 

If  now  it  be  asked  what,  according  to  Parsism,  is 
to  be  the  outcome  of  this  conflict,  the  answer  is  by 
no  means  directly  at  the  door.  It  is  popularly  said 
to  be  an  optimistic  creed.  Measui-ed  by  Brahman- 
ism  and  Buddhism,  it  is  certainly  optimistic ;  these 
were  the  religions  of  despair,  this  is  to  some  extent 


188  Messages  of  the  Old  Eeligions. 

a  religion  of  hope.  The  children  of  light  are  not  for 
ever  to  remain  in  darkness  ;  Ormuzd  is  to  get  the  vic- 
tory over  Ahrinian.  But  who  are  to  be  the  children 
y/^  of  light  ?  How  many  are  ultimately  to  be  included 
in  the  great  salvation  ?  Is  it  in  the  last  result  to 
comprehend  all  men,  or  is  it  to  be  limited  to  a  part  ? 
What  is  to  be  the  fate  of  the  rejected  part?  Are 
they  to  exist  in  eternal  misery,  or  are  they  to  be 
submerged  in  a  sea  of  annihilation  ?  These  are 
questions  on  which  the  commentators  of  Zoroaster 
are  divided.  Probably  in  this  respect  there  is  tlie 
same  ground  for  divided  opinion  as  exists  in  Chris- 
tianity. In  the  one  as  in  the  other  there  are  various 
interpretations  of  the  same  words.  In  the  one  as  in 
the  other  there  are  passages  of  the  sacred  books 
which  seem  to  make  for  either  side.  In  the  one  as 
in  the  other  there  are  opposite  castes  of  mind — those 
who  by  nature  are  swayed  by  the  dictates  of  law, 
and  those  who  by  disposition  are  dominated  by  the 
sentiment  of  love. 

We  shall  waive,  then,  the  question  whether,  ac- 
cording to  the  doctrine  of  Parsism,  there  is  or  is 
not  prognosticated  a  final  restoration  of  all  things. 
]>ut  even  when  we  leave  this  question  in  the 
background,  there  is  an  element  in  this  religion 
whicli  makes  us  pause  before  investing  it  with  the 
attributes  of  optimism.  Even  though  this  faith  had 
declared  without  ambiguity  that  all  the  sons  of  men 
were  ultimately  to  share  in  the  triumph  of  good- 


The  Message  of  Per sia»  189 

ness,  I  would  not  feel  justified  in  saying  that 
Parsism  was  an  optimistic  religion.  What  is  optim- 
ism ?  It  is  not  merely  the  belief  that  all  things 
shall  at  last  be  well ;  it  is  the  belief  that  all  things 
shall  at  last  be  found  to  have  conspired  to  the 
universal  wellbeing.  It  is  not  enough  for  me,  when 
I  am  passing  through  the  shadow  of  grief,  to  be 
told  that  a  time  is  approaching  in  which  the  shadow 
shall  pass  away  and  the  full  light  shall  come.  That 
may  be  very  satisfactory,  but  it  is  an  animal  satis- 
faction after  all ;  it  is  the  gratification  of  being  freed 
from  pain.  What  I  want  in  my  deepest  nature  is 
more  than  that ;  I  want  to  have  the  pain  vindicated. 
I  want  to  have  the  dark  past  not  only  expunged  but 
explained  —  to  some  extent  expunged  in  leing  ex- 
plained. It  is  all  very  well  that  the  years  of  shadow 
have  come  to  a  close ;  but  they  have  been  years. 
From  the  standpoint  of  the  natural  eye  they  have 
involved  a  loss  of  time,  a  waste  of  being,  a  dissi- 
pation of  energy.  If  I  am  to  call  my  life  optim- 
istic, I  must  be  made  to  feel  that  the  shadow  was 
a  part  of  the  light.  I  must  be  convinced  that  the 
seeming  waste  was  no  waste,  that  the  apparent  void 
was  full  of  possibilities,  and  that  the  desert  potenti- 
ally contained  within  it  the  blossoming  of  the  rose. 

Now,  it  is  in  this  respect  that  Parsism  fails.  Irre- 
spective altogether  of  the  question  whether  it  does 
or  does  not  cherish  a  universal  hope  for  man,  it 
regards   the    sorrows   of  life   as    real   sorrows  —  as 


190  Messages  of  the  Old  Religions, 

absolute  blots  and  bleiiiislies  in  the  constitution  of 
nature.  A  human  soul  awaking  in  another  world 
might,  according  to  this  system,  be  impelled  to  say, 
"  Ormuzd  has  made  it  all  right  now."  But  even 
such  a  soul,  under  such  circumstances,  would  not  bo 
impelled  to  say,  "  Ormuzd  has  been  making  it  right 
all  along."  There  can  be  no  joy  of  retrospect  in 
the  creed  of  Zoroaster.  Parsism  may  enable  its 
worshippers  to  exult  in  the  knowledge  that  what 
was  once  dark  has  become  day,  but  it  can  never 
enable  them  to  rejoice  in  the  vision  that  the  dark- 
ness was  but  a  shadow  of  the  day.  The  darkness 
came  from  Ahriman  and  remains  with  Ahriman  ; 
it  has  neither  part  nor  lot  in  the  final  consum- 
mation. It  lias  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  de- 
velopment of  the  kingdom  of  God ;  it  has  simply 
retarded  that  development.  Whatever  happiness 
the  soul  has  reached  has  been  reached  in  spite  of 
it,  in  the  face  of  it.  The  soul's  joy  must  be  the 
joy  of  an  escaped  bird;  it  can  have  no  place  for 
retrospect  except  a  place  of  horror.  It  may  revel 
in  its  acquired  good,  but  it  cannot  say  that  all 
things  have  worked  together  for  that  good.  Only 
the  half  of  things  have  worked  together — the  things 
of  Ormuzd ;  the  working  of  Ahriman  has  been  all 
for  bad,  and,  even  in  the  final  reckoning  of  accounts, 
can  have  served  no  purpose  in  contributing  to  the 
sum  of  happiness. 

And,  with    peculiar    emphasis    is    this   defect   of 


The  Message  of  Persia.  191 

Parsism  accentuated  in  its  doctrine  of  sin.  Zoro- 
aster calls  upon  all  men  to  be  saved,  and  opens 
up  to  many  men  the  way  of  salvation.  But  even 
those  who  have  readied  that  way  must  be  im- 
pressed that  there  is  something  wanting.  It  is 
not  enough  that  a  man  should  be  redeemed,  not 
enough  that  he  should  be  loosed  from  his  shackles 
and  told  that  he  is  free.  What  about  that  life 
which  he  has  lived  idtltm  the  sliackles  ?  What 
about  the  deeds  done  in  that  dark  past  from  which 
he  has  been  liberated  ?  It  is  all  very  well  that 
he  himself  has  been  emancipated  from  the  sinking 
ship;  but  the  ship  is  sinking  still,  and  it  is  sink- 
ing througli  his  blame.  Can  anything  be  done  to 
undo  the  past  deeds  of  the  man  ?  Parsism  answers, 
and  on  its  principles  can  only  answer,  "Xo."  There 
is  no  atonement  in  this  religion,  no  redress  of  former 
wrongs,  no  times  for  the  restitution  of  all  things. 
The  sweetest  note  of  Christianity  is  its  promise  of 
a  cancelled  past,  its  message  to  the  weary  soul  that 
the  evil  deeds  it  has  done  sliall  be  made  to  work 
out  a  beneficent  end.  The  joy  of  a  Paul  was  not 
only  that  all  things  had  been  made  new,  but  that 
old  things  had  passed  away.  He  felt  that  if  he 
liad  planted  tares  in  the  past,  it  was  not  enougli 
for  him  to  know  tliat  he  had  now  ceased  to  plant 
them.  He  must  be  told,  if  he  would  be  happy, 
that  the  tares  he  had  sown  would  themselves  be 
made  conducive  to  the  production  of  a  riper  wheat. 


1 92  Messages  of  the  Old  Religions, 

That  is  what  Parsisiu  could  not  tell  liiiu,  could  not 
tell  any  man.  It  could  promise  to  Moses  a  salva- 
tion from  his  ark  of  bulrushes ;  it  could  predict  for 
Joseph  a  liberation  from  his  Egyptian  dungeon ;  but 
it  could. not  tell  Moses  that  he  had  been  magnified 
through  his  peril,  nor  Joseph  that  the  dungeon  itself 
Lad  made  him  free.  To  the  furthest  horizon  of  its 
vision  Parsism  remains  dualis.tic  still.  Even  on  that 
view  of  its  most  sanguine  disciples,  which  looks  for- 
ward to  a  salvation  of  universal  man,  the  dualism 
continues  unbroken  and  unmodified ;  for  the  past  is 
itself  unredeemed,  and  the  errors  of  yesterday  are 
written  in  everlasting  colours.  The  glory  of  Parsism 
has  been  to  exhibit  the  natural  gulf  between  the 
pure  and  the  unholy ;  it  has  been  reserved  for  a 
loftier  faith  to  construct  a  bridge  between  them. 


The  Message  of  Greece.  193 


CHAPTER    IX. 

THE    MESSAGE    OF    GREECE. 

He  who  would  photograph  the  spirit  of  religions 
iiinst  distinguish  carefully  l.ietween  what  is  spon- 
taneous and  what  is  reflective.  The  former  is  a 
worship ;  the  latter  is  a  philosophy.  Tlie  religion 
-of  a  nation  is  its  impulse  towards  an  ideal ;  it  is 
therefore  in  all  its  forms  essentially  a  sacred  move- 
ment. But  the  philosophic  culture  of  a  nation  is  a 
secular  and  a  secularising  process;  even  where  it 
relates  to  a  religious  subject,  it  breathes  the  air  of 
the  common  day.  Xor  can  it  be  strictly  said  tliat 
the  philosophy  of  any  nation  is  a  product  purely 
national ;  it  is  always,  to  a  great  extent,  the  result 
of  conscious  appropriation  from  the  best  minds  of 
many  lands.  Men  like  Thales  and  Parmenides,  like 
Aristotle  and  Plato,  like  Epicurus  and  Zeno,  cannot 
be  said  to  be  simply  the  offspring  of  tlieir  age  and 
clime.  AVe  are  very  significantly  told  tlmt  before 
they  wrote  they  travelled.  Their  writing  was  there- 
fore a  conscious  and  deliberate  effort  to  emancipate 


194  Messages  of  the  Old  Religions. 

themselves  from  what  was  purely  local  and  na- 
tional, and  to  reach  a  basis  of  tliought  the  ground 
of  whose  recommendation  to  the  world  should  be 
the  fact  that  it  was  itself  grounded  on  a  universal 
soil. 

Accordingly  I  shall,  in  the  course  of  the  present 
studies,  deal  with  the  philosopliic  sects  of  Greece 
as  I  have  dealt  with  the  philosophic  sects  of  India  ; 
I  shall  pass  them  by.  I  shall  confine  this  study  of 
Greek  reliction  to  an  examination  of  its  earliest 
message — that  message  which  preceded  all  intellec- 
tual culture,  and  was  revealed  to  the  spontaneous 
instincts  of  the  heart.  The  period  of  its  nature- 
worship  is  really  the  distinctive  period  of  Greek 
religion ;  all  its  other  times  and  modes  are  the  re- 
suit,  more  or  less,  of  foreign  influence.  What,  then, 
is  this  earliest  message  of  the  Hellenic  faith  ?  Is 
there  anything  peculiar  about  it,  anything  which 
marks  it  out  from  other  forms  and  gives  it  the 
right  to  a  distinct  place  among  the  religions  of 
.the  world  ?  It  is  popularly  called  a  system  of  Poly- 
theism ;  but  there  is  nothing  new  in  that.  It  is 
essentially  a  reverence  for  the  things  of  nature;  but 
neither  in  this  is  there  anything  new.  If  it  is  to 
be  assigned  a  distinctive  place  in  theology,  it  must 
be  on  otlier  grounds  than  these — on  grounds  which 
make  its  Polytheism  unique  and  its  nature-worship 
singular.  Does  there  exist  in  this  faith  such  au 
element  of  peculiarity  ?  : 


The  Message  of  Greece,  19'5l 

I  think  there  does.  I  believe  it  will  be  found= 
that  there  is  one  respect  in  which  the  religious 
worship  of  the  Greek  differs  essentially  from  the. 
religious  worship  of  all  other  nations,  whether  Aryan 
or  Semitic.  If  I  were  asked  to  express  epigram- 
matically  the  difference  between  this  religion  and 
the  forms  of  faith  already  considered,  I  might  put 
it  thus :  The  message  of  Ch.ina  is  to  teach  the 
glories  of  yesterday.  The  message  of  India  is  to 
trace  the  development  of  the  day.  The  message 
of  Persia  is  to  exhibit  the  struggle  between  the 
day  and  the  night.  The  message  of  Greece  is  to 
reveal  the  intensity  of  the  hour.  When  we:  have 
reached  this  last  point,  we  have  touclied  hitlierto 
untrodden  ground.  China  led  us  back  to  the  past ; 
India  drove  us  forward  to  the  future ;  Greece  keeps 
us  chained  within  tlie  present.  Here  for  the  first 
time  man  looks  upon  the  passing  scene,  and  con- 
templates it  not  as  passing  but  as  permanent.  Here 
for  the  first  time  man  casts  his  eye  upon  the  world 
as  it  actually  exists,  and  sets  himself  to  justify -.^ 
nay,  to  reverence — things  as  they  are.  Other  faiths 
had  sought  their  object  in  the  glorification  of  things; 
the  faith  of  Greece  seeks  its  object  in  that  which  is 
manifested  to  the  common  eye.  India  descended 
from  the  heavens  to  the  eaitli ;  Greece  ascends 
from  the  earth  to  tlie  heavens.  On  earth  she  is 
always  more  at  home.  Her  earliest  and  her  latest 
philosophy  starts  from  the  reverence  of  things  pro- 


196  Missaycs  of  the  Old  Eel i'j ions. 

saic.  Her  earliest  came  from  the  men  of  lonia.^ 
Instead  of  looking  up  like  the  Indian  to  the  shining 
heavens,  tliey  adored  the  wnter,  the  air,  and  the  fire ; 
they  found  food  for  their  religious  contemplation  in 
the  most  common  and  the  most  commonplace  things. 
Her  latest  was  tlie  Stoics,  the  men  of  prosaic  mould 
— whose  motto  was  common-sense,  whose  creed  was 
sobriety  and  self-restraint,  whose  practice  was  to 
check  the  flight  of  the  emotions,  and  whose  ideal 
was  bounded  by  the  horizon  of  material  things.^ 

Xow,  these  tendencies  were  inherited  tendencies  ; 
they  came  from  the  primitive  religious  instinct. 
The  religion  of  Greece  was  essentially  and  dis- 
tinctively the  worship  of  the  hour,  the  investiture 
with  reverence  of  the  things  amongst  which  she 
lived  and  moved.  Her  object  was  to  realise  tlie 
joy  of  perception,  as  distinguished  from  the  joy 
of  retrospect  and  the  joy  of  prospect.  China  had 
lived  in  the  former;  Persia  had  lived  in  the  latter; 
Greece  sought  to  occupy  the  middle  ground.  In 
order  to  occupy  that  ground  unmolested,  she  put 
a  wall  on  either  side ;  she  strove  to  shut  out  at 
pace  the  memory  of  the  past  and  the  foresight 
of  the  future.  She  aimed  to  enclose  herself  within 
the    bars    of    the    present,    and    to    find   there    her 

^  Dollinger  regards  the  Ionic  school  as  materialistic.  '  The  Gen- 
tile and  the  JeAv  in  the  Courts  of  the  Temple  of  Christ,'  London, 
1862,  i.  250  sq.  ;  &ee  also  Cousin,  *  Histoire  Gc'n^rale  de  la 
Philosophie,'  Paris,   1867,  i.   110. 

2  See  DUllinger,  ibid.,  i.  349. 


The  Mtssage  of  Greece.  197 

perfect  satisfaction.  Hers  has  been  called  an  op- 
timistic creed,  yet,  in  strict  accuracy,  I  doubt  it* 
the  name  is  applicable.  Optimism  is  bound  to 
take  a  survey  of  the  universe  on  every  side,  to 
compare  its  present  with  its  past,  and  its  future 
with  its  present.  Greece  does  not  do  that ;  she 
keeps  rigidly  witliin  the  environment  of  the  hour. 
In  those  early  days  whicli  constitute  her  distinctive 
days,  she  has  no  space  either  for  memory  or  fur 
anticipation.  She  does  not  look  back  to  reflect 
on  the  years  that  are  gone ;  the  past  is  to  her  a 
sealed  book.  As  little  does  she  look  forward  to 
contemplate  the  years  that  are  coming.  The  Greek 
has  no  bright  prospect  in  the  sky  of  the  future. 
His  only  chance  of  keeping  his  optimism  is  to 
shut  his  eyes  on  that  future.  Beyond  this  life  all 
to  him  is  dark.  Of  the  existence  beyond  the  gra\'e 
he  has  the  most  gloomy  presentiments.  It  is  to 
him  a  half-life,  a  st'ate  of  partial  consciousness,  an 
assemblage  of  unsubstantial  shadows.  Every  time 
he  thinks  of  it  he  is  made  sad.^  As  he  is  deter- 
mined not  to  be  sad,  he  refuses  to  think  of  it.  He 
imprisons  himself  within  the  moment ;  he  crowns 
the  world  as  it  exists  now  and  here.  He  uncovers 
his  head  to  the  joy  of    the   scene  before  him,  and 


^  Achilles  says  in  Homer's  '  Odyssey  '  (bouk  xi.  line  4SS)  that  he 
would  rather  serve  on  earth  than  reign  among  the  dead,  dm- 
trast  the  subsequent  view  in  Plato's  '  Plucdo  ' ;  this,  however,  i:s 
uo  longer  the  pure  product  of  the  Greek  mind. 


198  Messages  of  the  Old  Religions. 

declines  to  worship  aught  but  his  native  land. 
The  object  of  the  Greek's  adoration  is  Greece — 
Greece  as  it  presented  itself  to  his  youthful  im- 
agination, and  as  it  appeared  on  the  surface  to  his 
outer  eye.  Like  the  Chinaman,  he  "may  be  said  to 
have  his  heaven  and  his  earth  in  the  land  of  his 
nativity ;  but,  unlike  the  Chinaman,  he  sees  them 
in  the  present  hour.  His  worship  is  the  worship 
not  of  yesterday  but  of  to-day ;  it  is  the  reverence 
for  things  as  they  are. 

Accordingly,  in  Greece  every  object  receives  a 
crown,  and  receives  a  crown  precisely  as  it  ministers 
to  the  national  mind.  The  things  of  nature  are 
adored  not  because  they  are  natural  but  because 
they  are  Grecian,  and  they  are  adored  in  those 
special  colours  with  which  the  Greek  soil  has  in- 
vested them.  There  is  a  strong  analogy  between 
the  faith  of  the  Greek  and  the  faith  of  the  Jew — 
an  analogy  all  the  more  strongly  marked  because 
it  manifests  itself  amid  tilings  otherwise  contrasted.^ 
The  Jew  recognised  a  divine  presence  in  every- 
thing that  related  to  his  country ;  he  made  no 
distinction  between  events  important  and  events 
trivial;  all  alike  were  the  voice  of  God.  The 
Greek  also  recognised  a  divine  presence  in  his 
national  life,  and  to  him,  as  to  the  Jew,  that  pres- 

^  The  points  of  contrast  will  be  found  very  well  indicated  in 
an  article  entitled  "  Greek  Mythology  and  the  Bible,"  by  Julia 
Wedgwood,   'Contemporary  Review,'  March  1892. 


The  Message  of  Greece.  199 

ence  filled  all  things.  The  difference  lay  not  in  the 
fact  but  in  the  ideaL  The  national  life  of  Judea 
wjis  not  the  same  as  the  national  life  of  Greece. 
Judea  was  the  life  of  history  ;  Greece  was  the  life 
of  perception.  Accordingly,  while  the  God  of  Judea 
•was  seen  in  events;  the  God  of  Greece  was  beheld 
in  objects.  And  as  the  Jew  attributed  to  his  God 
the  most  opposite  events,  the  Greek  imputed  to 
his  divinity  the  most  diverse  objects.  In  one 
sense  the  Greek  is  in  this  respect  more  remark- 
able than  the  Jew\  AVIiile  to  the  son  of  Israel 
all  acts  were  ultimately  divine  acts,  the  larger  part 
of  them  were  acts  of  penalty.  But  to  the  son  of 
Greece  there  was  no  place  for  penalty.  In  giving 
.to  every  object  a  divine  significance,  he  gave  it 
that  significance  absolutely,  unqualifiedly.  He  filled 
his  universe  with  God,  not  as  an  avenger,  or  a 
vindicator,  or  a  rectifier,  but  as  a  presence  and  a 
power,  for  its  ow^n  sake  precious  and  in  its  own 
light  beautiful.  I  have  used  the  word  "  God " 
instead  of  "  the  gods,"  in  order  to  mark  the  fact 
that  the  presence  was  universal.  The  Greek  adored 
separate  divinities,  but  he  saw  them  everywhere. 
There  was  not  a  space  of  his  world  unoccupied  by 
the  divine.  It  was  not  enough  that  there  should 
be  a  Spirit  of  the  grove ;  it  was  not  even  enough 
that  there  should  be  a  Spirit  of  the  tree ;  there 
must  be  a  Spirit  for  every  leaf  of  the  tree.  The 
result  is  that   the   Greek   enfolds   in  his  Pantheon 


200  Mcssctges  of  the  Old  Beligions. 

the  most  contrary  species  of  tilings  —  forms  the 
niost  diverse,  ideas  the  most  opposite.  Goethe  says 
that  we  weaNe  for  God  the  garment  by  which  we 
see  Him.  The  Greek  wove  no  garment  for  God  ; 
he  simply  cut  out  patches  from  the  garments  of 
his  fellow-men,  and  put  them  together  unmethodi- 
cally and  heterogeneously ;  he  deified  the  things 
around  him  just  because  they  vcre  around  him. 

Accordingly,  his  religion  presents  a  strange  medley. 
It  attributes  divinity  to  objects  the  most  diverse 
and  sometimes  the  most  opposite.  He  looked  out 
upon  the  manifestation  of  nature's  physical  power, 
and  he  called  it  Zeus — the  origin  of  all  things.  He 
looked  in  upon  the  manifestation  of  mental  power, 
and  he  called  it  Athene — the  principle  of  wisdom. 
He  contemplated  the  ideal  of  manhood  in  its  strength 
and  beauty,  and  he  called  it  Apollo;  he  surveyed 
the  ideal  of  womanhood  in  its  chasteness  and  pur- 
ity, and  he  called  it  Artemis.  He  gazed  upon  the 
turbulent  and  wayward  forces  of  the  world,  and  in 
his  admiration  of  the  power  that  kept  them  right, 
he  gave  that  power  a  name — Poseidon,  the  god  of 
the  sea.  But  he  beheld  other  forces  which  were 
-wayward,  not  from  their  strength  but  from  their 
stupidity.  He  felt  that  the  sheep  in  the  meadow 
needed  a  protector  as  much  as  the  waves  of  the 
ocean,  and  therefore  he  gave  the  shepherds  also  a 
god — Pan.  He  surveyed  the  field  of  war,  and  he 
.deemed  it  worthy  of  a  presiding  divinity — Mars  was 


The  Message  of  Greece.  201 

Lis  god  of  battle.  13ut  when  he  turned  inward  to  the 
domestic  hearth,  he  was  equally  impressed  with  the 
divineness  of  a  contrary  scene,  and  he  signified  his 
reverence  for  the  life  of  the  family  altar  by  placing 
it  under  the  patronage  of  Hestia.  He  bowed  before 
the  serious  aspects  of  nature;  he  deified  the  power 
that  forged  the  thunderbolt.  But  he  had  equally  a 
place  of  reverence  for  the  pleasure-hour;  he  had  his 
god  of  wine  as  well  as  of  fire.  He  had  a  seat  in  his 
Pantheon  for  the  god  who  directs  the  prosaic  courts 
of  law;  but  he  had  an  equal  throne  for  the  god 
who  stimulates  the  poetic  flights  of  eloquence.  He 
recognised  a  presiding  divinity  over  the  incipient 
movements  of  life,  and  crowned  Demeter  as  the 
fosterer  of  the  grain.  Yet,  singularly  enough,  lie 
liad  a  temple  also  dedicated  to  the  movelessness 
of  death ;  and  he  was  not  afraid  to  assign  a  divinity 
to  tliosc  very  precincts  of  the  grave  which  he  him- 
self so  utterly  loathed.^ 

The  reader  vrill  be  impressed  with  the  fact  that  we 
have  here  a  very  remarkable  and  a  very  unique  kind 
of  optimism.  In  its  usual  form  optimism  says,  "  We 
believe  that  it  will  be  all  right  in  the  long-run,  though 
it  is  dark  now."  The  Greek  religion  says,  "We 
know  nothing  about  the  long-run ;  but  it  is  all  right 
now."     The  long-run  was  to  the  Greek  an  invisible 

'  Wlioever  wishes  to  study  the  subsequent  symbohsm  grafted 
upon  these  divinities  may  consult  Sir  G.  W.  Cox,  'Mythology  of 
the  Aryan  Nations.' 


202  Messages  of  the  Old  Religions. 

quantity,  and  he  liad  no  synipatliy  with  the  invisible.^ 
Tlie  limit  to  liis  sympathy  was  the  boundary-line  be- 
tween the  seen  and  the  unseen.  Parsism  looked  for- 
ward to  a  time  when  tlie  struggle  with  material  things 
would  be  lulled  to  rest;  the  joy  of  Greece  was  tlie 
perception  of  the  struggle  itself.  He  liad  no  place  for 
hope  ;  he  lived  in  present  experience,  and  that  which 
made  life  to  him  glad  was  just  the  sense  of  its  conflict. 
And  tlie  reason  is  plain.  The  Greek  was  by  nature 
an  athlete.  His  Isthmian  games  were  only  the  ex- 
pression of  his  deepest  nature.  Competition  was  liis 
very  atmosphere.  He  was  a  born  wrestler,  a  man 
w^ho  felt  from  the  very  beginning  that  his  destiny 
was  to  strive.  Is  it  surprising  that  he  should  have 
deified  in  nature  that  in  whicli  he  seemed  to  find 
a  resemblance  to  himself  ?  Is  it  wonderful  that  he 
should  have  projected  his  own  ideal  into  the  earth 
and  sea  and  sky  of  his  native  land  ?  At  all  events, 
he  did  project  it.  He  saw  in  the  world  around  him 
a  reflex  of  that  world  which  he  felt  within  him.  He 
recognised  in  nature  the  same  elements  of  struggle 
which  he  found  in  himself,  and  he  consecrated  nature 
on  this  ground.  He  worshipped  things  as  they  were 
• — as  they  exhibited  themselves  in  the  daily  struggle 
for  survival.  And  because  his  ideal  of  excellence 
.was  the  power  to  strive,  he  bowed  liis  head  to  things 

^  The  Eleatic  and  Platonic  schools  are  of  course  exceptions  ; 
but  these  are  attempts  to  graft  Eastern  thouglit  on  a  Western  soil. 
Epicurus,  ou  the  other  hand,  has  an  echo  of  the  native  ring. 


■  The  Message  of  Greece.  203 

of  opposite  quality.  Strife  demands  opposition;  it 
demands  a  sense  of  difficulty  on  the  part  of  tlie 
combatant.  The  Greek  reverenced  the  powers  of 
nature  and  the  powers  of  mind  more  from  their 
aspect  of  imperfection  than  from  their  semblance 
of  completeness  ;  he  loved  them  because  they  seemed 
to.  make  their  way  through  opposing  clouds  and  re- 
tarding storms.  It  is  by  this  that  I  explain  the 
strange  combinations  of  thought  that  meet  in  his 
worship,  the  number  of  dissimilar  things  that  dwell 
.side  by  side  in  his  temple.  He  puts  them  side  by 
side,  that  out  of  their  contrast  there  may  come  con- 
flict, and  that  out  of  their  conflict  there  may  arise 
the  ideal  which  he  loves.  Let  me  try  to  illustrate 
this. 

One   of  the  most  prominent  objects  of  worship 

;in  ancient  Greece  is  Apollo.     In  later  times  he  is 

.the  sun -god,  but  this  was  a  light  into   which  he 

grew.-^      Apollo   became   the   sun  as  a  reward   for 

:Work  done  on  the  earthly  plane.      That  work  was 

the  service  of  man.     He  is  from  the  beginning  the 

representative  of  ideal  humanity,   the   embodiment 

of  all  that  is  pure  and  noble  in  tlie  huumn  spirit. 

-He  is  to  the  mind  of   Greece  what  the  names  of 

the  canonised  are  to   the  mind  of  Medievalism— .a 

symbol  of   the   saintly  life.      It   is   this    purifying 

power  which  is  sought  to  be  indicated  when  he  is 

^  In  the  Homeric  poems  Apollo  is  viewed  as  quite  distinct  from 
the  sun -god  ;  see,  for  example,  the  opening  of  the  '  Iliad.' 


20-4  Messages  of  the  Old  Belujwns. 

called  the  god  of  medicine  —  the  restorer  and  pre- 
server of  that  physical  health  which  has  so  much 
to  do  with  tlie  health  of  the  soul.  Apollo  stands 
for  the  perfect  man,  tlie  man  unspotted  by  the 
world.  }3ut  then,  side  by  side  with  this  picture, 
tliere  is  another  and  a  different  one,  and  the  two 
are  made  to  blend  together.  Apollo  is  the  saintly 
man,  but  he  is  at  the  same  time  the  gay  man.  He 
is  unspotted  by  the  world,  but  he  is  also  at  the 
very  heart  of  the  world.  Pure  himself,  he  holds 
in  his  hand  everything  that  is  supposed  to  be  a 
temptation  against  purity.  He  has  the  hot  blood 
of  youth  in  his  veins ;  his  mildness  is  not  the  result 
of  a  cool  temperament,  but  dwells  beside  a  river  of 
rushing  passion.  He  is  always  represented  with  a 
bow  and  with  a  lyre.  It  is  intended  to  mark  the 
fact  that  he  is  the  embodiment  at  once  of  the 
martial  and  the  musical.  He  is  the  leader  of  men 
in  the  ranks  of  war,  and  he  is  the  delight  of  men 
in  the  ranks  of  peace.  He  supplies  at  once  the 
sources  of  physical  strength  and  the  means  of 
social  enjoyment.  These  are  elements  not  com- 
monly associated  with  the  saintly  life ;  they  are 
supposed  to  furnish  incentives  to  temptation,  seduc- 
tions from  the  path  of  that  life.  Wiiy,  then,  are 
they  associated  here  ?  Is  not  the  reason  plain  ? 
Is  it  not  clear  that  the  Greek  put  these  temptations 
into  the  hand  of  Apollo  just  because  they  iceve 
temptations,  just   because   they  supplied   an  oppor- 


The  Mcssar/e  of  Greece.  205 

tuiiity  for  llmt  struggle  in  which  the  Greek  above 
all  things  delighted  ?  When  he  invests  the  pure 
man  with  the  bow  and  with  the  lyre,  it  is  because 
lie  wants  purity  to  be  not  an  empty  thing,  not  the 
result  of  mere  mental  vacancy  or  of  simple  inanity, 
but  the  product  of  a  deliberate  choice  and  the  fruit 
of  a  determinate  struggle.  The  Greek  has  been 
here  true  to  himself,  true  to  his  country,  true  ta 
his  national  ideal.  He  has  given  Apollo  the  wreath 
of  purity  because  he  has  won  that  wreath  by  con- 
quest. He  has  worshipped  his  unspottedness  be- 
cause it  has  been  an  unspottedness  where  spots 
might  have  been — a  whiteness  which  has  remained 
uncontaminated  amidst  conditions  and  amidst  en- 
vironmsnls  in  wdiich  the  incurring  of  contamination 
seemed  almost  a  necessary  thing. 

Again.  If  Apollo  was  the  Greek's  ideal  of  man- 
hood, Artemis  was  his  ideal  of  womanhood.  In 
fixing  upon  Artemis  as  his  type  of  womanhood,  the 
Greek  has  done  honour  to  himself.  Artemis  is  the 
representative,  of  chastity.  Out  of  all  the  possible 
excellences  which  are  associated  with  the  name  of 
woman,  he  has  selected  tiiis  one  as  the  most  glorious 
and  the  most  desirable  one.  He  has  passed  by  his 
own  natural  predilection  for  the  beautiful ;  he  has 
subordinated  his  instinctive  tendency  to  give  prom- 
inence to  the  symmetry  of  form ;  he  has  made 
selection  of  a  quality  which  is  of  all  qualities 
the    least    distinctive   of  his  race,  and  has  thereby- 


206-  Mcssctges  of  the  Old  Religions. 

indicated  an  aspiration  beyond  his  own  environ-' 
ment.  When  the  Greek  crowned  ^voman  with  the 
wreath  of  divinity,  he  encircled  her  head  with  that 
laurel  which  he  deemed  the  most  precious,  and 
which  doubtless  ^cas  to  him  the  most  precious, 
because  amongst  tlie  actual  women  of  his  land  it 
was  the  most  rare.  He  proclaimed  the  divineness 
of  cliastity,  because  cliastity  w^as  as  yet  the  most 
transcendental  thing,  the  thing  most  removed  from 
positive  experience.  But  here  again  we  are  con- 
fronted by  a  remarkable  combination.  Artemis  is 
the  representative  of  chaste  womanhood,  but  she 
is  not  the  representative  of  ascetic  womanhood!  If 
she  is  crowned  as  the  goddess  of  chastity,  she  is 
also  crowned  as  tlie  goddess  of  the  chase.  To  her 
belongs  the  pleasure  of  the  hunting -field  —  the 
exercise  of  limb  and  the  strength  of  arm.  She 
incarnates  in  herself  all  that  is  manly  in  sport,  all 
that  is  vigorous  in  pastime.  She  incorporates  in 
her  nature  the  attributes  of  the  other  sex  along 
with  the  distinctive  qualities  of  her  own.  She  is 
beautiful  in  feature  but  not  gentle  in  expression,- 
•miceful  in  form  but  not  feminine  in  mould ;  she  i^ 
the  woman  in  the  man.  And  here  again,  can  one 
fail  to  recognise  the  deep  meaning  that  underlies 
the  picture  ?  Why  has  the  Greek  made  the  goddess 
of  chastity  the  goddess  of  the  chase  ?  Clearly  that 
tlirough  the  chase  he  may  give  more  value  to  the 
chastity.     He  wants  the  cha^^teness  of  Artemis,  like 


The  Message  of  Greece.  207 

the  pureness  of  Apollo,  not  to  be  the  result  of  an 
empty  heart  nor  the  product  of  a  shallow  life,  but 
to  be  the  expression  of  a  nature  which  has  known 
both  sides  of  the  question,  and  which  adlieres  to 
virtue  because  it  has  made  a  deliberate  choice.  He 
wants  it  to  be  an  abstinence  which  springs  not  from 
the  fact  that  she  has  been  immured  in  cloistered 
cell  or  hid  from  the  temptations  of  the  passing 
hour,  but  from  the  deptli  of  a  conviction  that  has 
come  from  worldly  experience,  and  arrived  at  its 
determination  by  weighing  the  alternatives  on  either 
side.  The  Greek  has  been  led  to  deify  two  natures 
in  one  person  through  his  own  admiration  for 
struggle,  through  his  consciousness  that  virtue  is 
only  beautiful  when  it  stands  out  in  contrast  with 
that  which  would  seduce  it. 

I  shall  give  yet  another  illustration,  because  it  is 
one  which  is  deep  and  far-reaching.  Let  us  take 
that  god  whom  the  Greeks  called  Hephaistos,  and 
the  Komans  Yulcan.  He  is  the  god  of  fire,  the 
maker  of  war-instruments,  the  man  who  forges  the 
thunderbolts  for  Jove.  Yet  this  herculean  labour 
has  to  be  performed  by  an  imperfect  body.  Yul- 
can is  both  lame  and  deformed,  and  his  movements 
are  naturally  slow^ ;  he  is  represented  in  himself  as 
an  object  of  laughter  to  the  gods.  The  problem 
is  why  such  a  conception  should  have  been  deified 
and  worshipped  by  man,  specially  why  such  a  con-r 
cei)tion   should    have  been  deified  and  worshipped 


208  Mcssa[/cs  of  tlic  Old  Bdirjion!^. 

by  tlie  Greek.  In  later  times  tlie  Greek  did  nob 
scruple  to  invest  the  objects  of  his  worship  with 
human  passions  and  mental  weaknesses,  and  this 
has  always  seemed  a  marvel.  But  to  my  mind  the 
earlier  fact  is  far  more  marvellous — that  the  Greek 
sliould  have  reverenced  a  being  whom  he  had  in- 
vested with  bodily  defects.  Let  us  remember  what 
^vas  to  him  the  highest  manifestation  of  life's  glory ; 
it  was  the  exhibition  of  the  beautiful  in  nature,  in 
art,  in  man.  Beauty  was  to  the  Greek  the  Alpha 
and  the  Omega,  the  beginning  and  the  end  of  all 
perfection.  There  was  no  flaw  to  him  like  a  flaw 
against  symmetry  ;  there  was  no  error  to  him  like  an 
error  against  taste.  One  would  have  expected  that 
wherever  he  had  an  object  of  worship,  and  what- 
ever might  be  the  endowments  of  that  object,  he 
would  at  least  have  invested  it  with  an  ample 
measure  of  beauty.  Very  startling  therefore  is  it 
when  we  find  him  reverencing  a  being  in  Avhom 
there  is  no  form  nor  comeliness,  bowing  down 
before  a  presence  in  whose  outward  aspect  are  the 
marks  of  an  image  more  marred  than  the  sons  of 
men.  How  are  w^e  to  account  for  this  ?  How  are 
\ve  to  ex])lain  the  fact  that  the  beauty-loving  Greek 
has  deserted  his  own  ideal  of  beauty — that  the  man 
who  habitually  reverences  above  all  tilings  the 
symmetry  of  form,  should  have  yielded  his  adora- 
tion to  that  which  is  distinguished  for  its  want  of 
symmetry  ? 


The  Message  of  Greece.  209 

The  reason  again  is  plain.  Ifc  is  because  the 
Greek  in  his  deepest  nature  is  an  athlete.  He 
values  a  possession  in  proportion  as  that  possession 
has  been  won.  Even  beauty  would  not  be  valuable 
to  him  if  it  were  the  rule  and  not  the  exception. 
It  is  the  fact  that,  in  the  struggle  for  existence, 
some  forms  have  been  able  to  maintain  not  only 
their  existence  but  their  symmetry,  which  makes  the 
possession  of  that  symmetry  to  him  a  joy ;  the  beau- 
tiful itself  is  only  accepted  as  a  road  to  the  strong. 
In  this  light  Vulcan's  position  becomes  clear.  There 
has  fallen  to  him  a  herculean  work  to  do ;  he  has 
to  forge  those  bolts  of  fire  which  shall  execute  the 
mandates  of  the  universe.  What  more  natural  than 
that  the  Greek  should  make  it  more  herculean  still, 
should  exaggerate  the  difficulty,  to  lend  more  glory 
to  the  strength  ?  Accordingly  he  has  done  so.  He 
has  made  the  god  of  fire  and  of  the  thunderbolt 
a  god  with  bodily  defects ;  he  has  invested  him 
with  lameness  and  with  the  elements  of  physical 
imperfection.  He  has  so  invested  him  that  he  may 
magnify  the  execution  of  his  task,  that  he  may 
exhibit  in  more  strong  relief  the  greatness  of  his 
actually  exerted  power.  Some  worshippers  would 
have  reverenced  the  object  of  their  worship  in 
proportion  as  it  found  all  things  easy;  the  Greek 
bestows  his  reverence  on  the  opposite  ground.  To 
him  the  glory  of  life,  even  of  divine  life,  is  its 
struggle.     The  powers  of  nature  are  reverenced  by 

0 


210  Messages  of  the  Old  Religions. 

him  because  they  are  athletic  powers — forces  which 
act  and  react  upon  each  other,  and  which  keep  their 
place  by  conflict.  Whatever  emphasises  the  con- 
flict, whatever  intensifies  the  obstacle,  is  prized  and 
appropriated  as  a  means  to  the  ultimate  eff'ect,  and 
is  permitted  even  to  share  by  anticipation  in  that 
glory  which  the  ultimate  effect  shall  secure. 

I  cannot  but  direct  attention  to  the  remarkable  an- 
alogy which  in  this  respect  the  mythology  of  ancient 
Greece  bears  to  a  system  which  is  generally  held  to 
be,  and  which  in  many  respects  is,  its  contrast — the 
religion  of  Jesus  Christ.  If  one  were  asked  to  put  liis 
hand  upon  that  form  of  belief  which  of  all  others  is 
most  foreign  to  Christianity,  he  would  probably  select 
the  Hellenic  worship  of  nature.  And  yet  it  is  in  this 
Hellenic  worship  of  nature  that  we  find  the  germ  of 
that  which  in  Christianity  appears  in  full  development 
— the  glorification  of  weakness.  The  sensuous  Greek 
and  the  self-sacrificing  Christian  have  alike  distin- 
guished themselves  from  other  forms  of  faith  by  in- 
corporating in  their  Pantheon  the  shadows  of  human 
life ;  to  the  one,  as  to  the  other,  weakness  is  a  condi- 
tion of  strength.  ISTo  doubt  there  is  a  vast  difference 
in  their  respective  reasons  for  this.  The  Greek  in- 
corporates weakness  in  his  Pantheon  in  order  that 
he  may  lend  to  him  who  overcomes  it  a  larger  meed 
of  praise.  The  Christian  admits  weakness  into  liis 
Pavilion  for  precisely  the  opposite  reason — in  order 
that  the  man  who  strives  may  be  taught  the  lesson 


The  Message  of  Greece.  211 

of  his  own  nothingness.  Yet,  when  we  look  deeper, 
it  may  perhaps  be  found  that  these  two  views  are 
not  so  discordant  as  they  seem ;  that  there  is  at 
least  a  point  in  whicli  for  a  moment  they  find  a 
meeting-place.  The  Greek  magnifies  strength,  and 
the  Christian  magnifies  humility;  but  does  not  the 
Christian  magnify  humility  as  an  ultimate  source 
of  strength  ?  Is  it  not  because  he  sees  in  self- 
forojetfulness  the  road  to  self-enlarirement,  because 
he  recognises  in  the  spirit  of  sacrifice  the  promise 
and  potence  of  life,  that  he  insists  before  all  things 
on  the  soul  becoming  unconscious  of  itself?  Is 
not  weakness  here  also  contemplated  as  a  means  of 
struggle,  and  crowned  as  a  road  to  victory  ?  Thus 
strangely  do  these  two  forms  of  faith,  so  different 
in  their  origin  and  so  divergent  in  their  general 
aspects,  exhibit  at  one  corner  an  attitude  of  con- 
cord and  alliance  —  an  attitude  which  may  have 
found  its  ultimate  realisation  in  that  singular  union 
of  the  son  of  Abraham  with  the  son  of  Hellas  which 
marked  the  close  of  the  Jewish  Theocracy,  and  con- 
stituted the  dawn  of  the  Christian  day. 

And  if  the  Greek  mythology  presents  a  point  of 
union  with  Christian  thought,  it  presents  equally  a 
point  of  union  with  that  which  at  first  sight  seems 
more  pronouncedly  its  opposite  than  the  religion  of 
Jesus  ;  I  mean  the  speculations  of  modern  science.  I  f 
there  are  two  things  which  at  the  outset  appear  irre- 
concilable, they  are  the  dreams  of  the  ancient  Greek 


2 1 2  Messages  of  the  Old  Bdigions. 

and  the  conclusions  of  the  modern  evolutionist. 
The  one  stands  at  the  beginning,  and  the  other 
at  the  close  of  human  development.  And  yet  in 
the  optimism  of  ancient  Greece,  there  is  something 
which  finds  an  analogy  with  tlie  speculations  of 
modern  evolution.  As  the  mornincj  is  more  like 
the  evening  than  any  other  part  of  the  day,  so  the 
earliest  phase  of  humanity  resembles  its  latest  mani- 
festation more  than  its  intermediate  phases.  Modern 
science  is  on  the  whole  optimistic.  It  believes  that 
the  development  of  man  is  an  upward  development, 
and  that  when  the  creature  is  fully  adjusted  to  his 
environment  he  will  find  peace.  But  this  ultimate 
optimism  of  modern  science  implies  much  more ;  it 
implies  that  every  step  of  the  process  has  been  a 
step  in  the  right  direction  —  in  the  direction  of 
the  goal.  If  ever  the  time  should  come  in  which 
the  millennial  age  of  the  modern  scientist  shall  be 
reached,  he  himself  will  be  the  first  to  proclaim 
that  it  has  been  reached  by  the  accumulation  and 
combination  of  all  the  events  which  have  preceded 
it — prosperous  and  adverse,  good  and  bad.  He  will 
tell  the  world  of  his  day  that  the  prosperity  to 
which  men  have  attained  has  been  simply  the  last 
result  of  the  whole  foregoing  panorama,  the  ultimate 
issue  of  that  long  train  of  circumstances  which  is 
called  the  course  of  time.  He  will  make  no  dis- 
tinction in  his  retrospective  survey  between  the 
defects  and  the  symmetries  of  nature.     The  defects 


TJic  Message  of  Greece.  213 

will  themselves  appear  in  the  light  of  symmetries, 
because  to  the  eye  of  the  scientist  they  shall  appear 
as  workers  in  the  building.  Every  step  of  the 
preceding  evolution  shall  be  found  to  have  been  a 
necessary  step  to  the  production  of  the  actual  goal. 
The  absence  of  aught  which  seemed  a  blemish,  the 
leaving  out  of  anything  which  was  called  a  defect, 
shall  be  regarded  by  him  as  an  impossible  concep- 
tion. He  will  be  constrained  to  say  in  scientific 
retrospect  what  an  apostle  said  in  religious  faith — 
that  all  things  have  w^orked  together  for  good.  If 
modern  science  is  optimistic  at  all,  it  must  be  opti- 
mistic all  through.  It  cannot  be  hopeful  about  the 
whole  without  being  sanguine  about  the  part,  for  the 
very  marrow  of  its  doctrine  is  the  belief  that  the 
whole  is  involved  in  the  part.  It  cannot  be  opti- 
mistic regarding  the  future  without  being  optimis- 
tic in  relation  to  the  passing  hour,  for  it  is  itself 
based  on  the  principle  that  the  future  sleeps  in 
the  present,  and  that  the  passing  hour  enfolds  the 
germ  of  the  completed  day.^ 

And,  to  tell  this  was  the  message  of  Greece.  That 
she  told  it  in  rough  language  is  true ;  that  she 
expressed  herself  very  badly  is  undoubted ;  but  be- 
neath the  grotesqueness  of  the  form  there  abides  the 
spirit  of  that  truth  which  she  meant  to  convey.  It 
is  a  truth  unique  amongst  the  messages  of  religions. 

^  All  this  is  conceded  even  by  such  a  negative  writer  as  Lange  in 
his  'History  of  Materialism.' 


214  Messages  of  the  Old  Religions. 

Hitherto  the  creeds  of  men  had  deified  the  objects 
of  life  after  having  lifted  them  out  of  life ;  they 
first  idealised  them  and  then  crowned  them.  But 
here  the  objects  of  life  are  crowned  without  being 
idealised  ;  they  are  crowned  as  they  are — in  all  their 
present  forms,  and  with  all  their  present  imperfec- 
tions. The  Greek  has  put  his  hand  upon  the  world 
as  it  is — struggling,  commonplace,  unfinished.  He 
has  uncovered  his  head  before  the  aspect  of  nature 
which  meets  him  every  day,  before  the  events  which 
befall  him  every  hour,  and  he  has  not  scrupled  to 
assign  divinity  to  the  images  of  creation  as  they 
actually  float  before  him.  In  so  doing,  he  has  sup- 
plied a  desideratum  in  the  objects  of  religious  wor- 
ship. Eeligious  worship  had  deified  everything  but 
the  common  day.  It  had  deified  the  past  in  China ; 
it  had  deified  the  future  in  Persia;  it  had  deified 
even  the  hour  of  death  in  the  Buddhism  of  India ; 
but  it  had  put  no  crown  upon  the  objects  and  the 
events  of  the  living  hour.  It  was  reserved  for  Greece 
to  supply  the  want  in  the  temple  of  humanity,  and 
by  this  she,  being  dead,  yet  speaketh. 


The  Message  of  Borne,  215 


CHAPTER    X. 

THE    MESSAGE    OF    ROME. 

I  REGARD  the  Eoman  religion  as  the  earliest  attempt 
at  religious  union.  Its  distinctive  message  to  the 
world  was  to  proclaim  the  possibility  of  destroying 
the  distinctive,  of  erasing  those  lines  of  demarca- 
tion which  tend  to  divide  the  faiths  of  men.  From 
the  very  beginning,  from  the  very  constitution  of 
her  nature,  Eome  sought  a  principle  of  eclecticism — 
a  principle  which  should  unite  and  rivet  the  lives  of 
the  multitude.  In  every  department  of  her  history 
slie  pursued  the  same  end ;  her  religious  instinct 
only  moved  in  unison  with  her  national  reason.  As 
surely  as  on  the  life  of  the  bee  there  is  imprinted 
the  necessity  to  construct  an  incorporative  hive, 
there  was  from  the  outset  imprinted  on  the  Eoman 
constitution  the  necessity  to  construct  an  incorpo- 
rative empire — an  empire  which  in  its  extent  and 
its  vastness  might  yet  leave  room  for  the  action  of 
many  powers  within  it.  The  unity  at  which  Eome 
aimed  was   not  a   uniformity.      She   did   not  seek 


2 1 6  Messages  of  the  Old  Bcligions. 

merely  to  compress  the  nations  by  conquest  under 
her  own  sceptre.  She  was  perfectly  willing — nay, 
earnestly  desirous — that  the  nations  should  not  be 
compressed,  that  her  conquests  sliould  be  of  such  a 
nature  as  to  leave  them  in  a  measure  free.  She 
wanted  an  empire  whose  glory  should  consist  in 
holding  other  empires  within  it,  as  a  drop  of  water 
holds  within  it  a  multitude  of  separate  lives.  Her 
political  aim  was  unity,  and  unity  is  ever  the  com- 
bination, not  the  destruction,  of  the  many.  Her 
whole  history,  with  all  its  changes,  is  an  effort  to 
conserve  in  the  new  the  elements  of  the  old.  When 
Augustus  aimed  at  undivided  empire,  he  aimed  at 
it  in  the  Eoman  method ;  he  did  not  break  with  the 
institutions  of  the  past,  but  gathered  them  around  his 
own  person.^  It  is  but  an  instance  in  miniature  of 
what  Eome  sought  to  do  in  the  gross.  She  was 
willing  to  permit  the  institutions  of  the  world  to  re- 
main ;  she  only  asked  that  they  would  assume  her 
own  name. 

Now,  the  Roman  religion  follows  the  plan  of  the 
Roman  politics;  strictly  speaking,  it  is  but  a  part 
of  those  politics.  It  never  aspires  to  originality ;  it 
would  scarcely  be  too  much  to  say  that  it  aspires  to 
be  not  original.  Originality  would  have  destroyed 
the  Eoman  design.  The  Roman  design  in  every 
sphere  was  incorporation.      Incorporation  demands 

^  See  this  point  very  clearly  stated  in  Dean  Merivale's  article 
"Augustus,"  'Encyclopaedia  Britannica,'  ninth  edition. 


The  Message  of  Rome.  217 

eclecticism — tlie  selecting  of  that  which  is  best  in 
surrounding  systems.  Eome's  eagerness  to  incor- 
porate made  her  unwilling  to  be  originative.  She 
was  too  anxious  to  gather  in  the  old  to  be  a  founder 
of  the  new.  Her  aim  was  to  find  a  meeting-place 
for  the  creeds  of  the  nations.  Books  on  popular 
Church  history  have  often  been  misled  as  to  her 
character  by  her  attitude  to  Christianity.  Viewing 
her  in  that  attitude,  they  have  represented  her  as  a 
persecuting  power.  The  truth  is,  it  was  the  nature 
of  Christianity  and  not  the  nature  of  Eome  which 
gave  rise  to  persecutions.  Eome  would  have  toler- 
ated any  religion  which  would  consent  to  nestle 
under  her  banner.  But  this  Christianity  would  not 
consent  to  do.  Christianity  claimed  exactly  what 
Eome  claimed — to  be  the  wide-spreading  tree  upon 
whose  branches  all  other  faiths  miglit  rest.  She 
claimed  to  be  the  principle  of  union  which  formed 
a  possible  nucleus  for  the  reconciliation  of  rival  be- 
liefs. She  claimed  to  have  been  herself  the  uncon- 
scious source  of  all  other  aspirations — the  light  which 
had  lighted  the  worship  of  every  man.  Christianity, 
therefore,  could  never  have  accepted  the  terms  of 
the  Eoman  Pantheon,  could  never  have  consented  to 
serve  in  a  house  where  she  asserted  the  right  to  rule. 
Her  distinctive  characteristic  was  that  she  refused 
to  be  tolerated,  insisted  to  be  recognised  alone  and 
supreme.  She  brooked  no  rival,  and  she  would 
admit  no  second ;  she  demanded,  like  Eome  herself, 


218  Messages  of  the  Old  liclif/ions. 

the  suffrages  of  all  other  faiths.  It  is  unfair,  there- 
fore, to  regard  Rome's  attitude  towards  Christianity 
as  an  exception  to  her  usual  policy.  She  was  as 
willing  to  extend  her  toleration  to  Christianity  as 
to  any  other  creed,  and  she  only  exchanged  her  tol- 
eration for  hostility  because  Christianity  refused  to 
tolerate  her. 

The  result  of  this  eclecticism  is  that  the  religion 
of  Eome  exhibits  not  one  but  many  elements.  Just 
as  within  her  body  politic  there  repose  side  by  side 
the  characteristics  of  many  lands,  so  within  the 
membership  of  her  religious  system  there  sleep  the 
phases  of  many  faiths.  Eome  brings  no  new  mes- 
sage into  the  world ;  her  mission  is  to  collect,  and, 
if  possible,  to  combine,  those  messages  which  the 
world  has  already  received.  Accordingly,  the  faith 
of  Eome  is  a  many-sided  faith ;  it  would  have  been 
universally  sided  if  every  aspect  of  religion  had  in 
its  day  been  represented.  It  took  whatever  it  found. 
It  gathered  stones  from  all  surrounding  temples,  and 
out  of  these  it  built  a  temple  of  its  own — a  temple 
not  very  symmetrical  indeed,  not  very  harmoniously 
welded  nor  aptly  adjusted,  yet  exhibiting  a  faithful 
and  honest  attempt  to  find  in  one  Pantheon  a  place 
for  many  minds.  Let  us  look  at  one  or  two  of  the 
different  sides  of  this  religion 

It  has  one  aspect  in  which  it  bears  a  resemblance 
to  the  faith  of  Judea.  Whence  that  resemblance  or- 
iginates we  cannot  tell,  but  it  is  highly  probable  that 


The  Message  of  Rome.  219 

the  far-travelling  and  eagerly  incorporating  spirit 
of  Eome  came  at  an  early  date  into  contact  with 
Judaic  forms  of  thought.^  Be  this  as  it  may,  it  is 
certain  that  in  Eome,  as  in  Judea,  we  find  the  union 
of  two  tendencies  which,  so  far  as  I  know,  are  in 
no  other  faith  found  combined  —  the  tendency  to 
dwell  in  the  past,  and  the  impulse  to  push  forward 
into  the  future.  China  has  exhibited  the  one,  and 
Parsism  has  revealed  the  other;  but  it  has  been 
reserved  for  Judea  and  Eome  alone  to  find  a  meet- 
ing-place for  both.  In  Eome,  as  in  Judea,  we  see 
hands  stretched  out  in  opposite  directions  —  one 
pointing  backward  to  the  gates  of  a  golden  para- 
dise, the  other  pointing  forward  to  the  gates  of  a 
future  kingdom.  In  the  one,  as  in  the  other,  we 
behold  the  spectacle  of  a  mind  divided  between 
the  pride  of  a  high  origin  and  the  expectation  of 
a  lofty  destiny,  vibrating,  between  a  glory  which 
has  been  and  a  splendour  which  is  coming.  If 
Judea  goes  back  to  her  Eden,  Eome  goes  back  to 
her  Troy ;  if  Judea  looks  forward  to  her  Messiah, 
Eome  looks  forward  to  her  universal  dominion. 
The  actual  life  of  each  is  bounded  by  two  paradises 
— the  glory  of  a  lofty  ancestry  and  the  glory  of 
an  omnipotent  posterity.     And  in  the  life  of  each 

^  Kenan  says  that  it  is  probable  Judaic  thought  would  reach  Rome 
earlier  than  even  nearer  parts  of  the  empire.  See  his  *  Influence 
of  the  Institutions,  Thought,  and  Culture  of  Rome  on  Christianity 
and  the  Development  of  the  Catholic  Church,'  Hibbert  Lecture, 
1880. 


220  Messages  of  the  Old  Bcligions. 

the  power  which  mediates  between  the  one  and  the 
other  is  the  power  of  law.  In  Judea  and  in  Rome 
alike,  the  minds  of  men  are  developed  from  the  para- 
dise of  the  past  into  the  paradise  of  the  future  by  a 
colossal  system  of  jurisprudence,  by  which  the  will 
of  each  man  is  subjugated,  and  the  will  of  each 
adjusted  to  the  will  of  all — a  jurisprudence  which 
in  both  cases  has  left  upon  the  ages  an  everlasting 
impress,  and  has  exerted  a  permanent  influence  upon 
institutions  and  civilisations  foreign  to  its  own. 

It  will  be  seen  from  this  that  at  the  root  of  the 
Pioman  religion  there  lies  an  element  not  com- 
monly found  in  the  faiths  of  the  pre  -  Christian 
world — the  element  of  morality.  In  Eome,  as  in 
Judea,  the  conception  of  law  is  an  ethical  concep- 
tion ;  it  is  founded  on  tlie  reciprocal  duties  of  man 
to  man,  and  on  the  duties  of  all  to  the  body  politic. 
The  result  is  that  in  the  early  stages  of  her  history 
the  religion  of  Eome  exhibits,  as  IMommsen  remarks, 
an  aspect  of  great  seriousness.^  It  is  unlike  otlier 
systems  of  Polytheism  in  the  solemnity  witli  whicli 
it  approaches  the  problems  of  life.  If  it  deifies  tlie 
powers  of  nature,  it  does  so  not  on  tlie  ground  of 
their  contribution  to  sensuous  joy,  but  on  the  ground 
of  their  possible  service  to  humanity.  The  object  of 
the  Roman's  reverence,  like  the  object  of  the  Jew's 

1  Momtnseu,  indeed,  shows  how,  afterwards,  the  corruption  of  the 
Roman  mind  destroyed  this  primitive  reverence.  See  his  'Home,' 
book  iii.  chap,  xiii. 


The  Message  of  Rom  e.  221 

reverence,  is  that  collection  of  individuals  compre- 
hended under  the  name  of  the  State.  Everything 
which  is  worshipped  by  him  is  worshipped  by  reason 
of,  and  in  proportion  to,  its  service  to  the  common- 
wealth. The  conceptions  of  Church  and  State  are 
not  two  conceptions,  but  one ;  the  life  of  politics  is 
identified  with  the  life  of  piety.  The  good  citizen 
and  the  good  man  are  synonymous  terms.  There 
is  no  difference  between  treason  and  sacrilege,  no 
separation  between  sin  and  crime.  The  man  who 
violates  the  law  of  his  country  has  violated  thereby 
the  divine  law,  and  his  expiation  to  the  law  of  his 
country  is  accepted  as  an  expiation  to  the  law  of 
heaven.  And  because  the  Eoman  reverenced  the 
State,  he  reverenced  also  the  family;  here  again 
emerges  his  resemblance  to  the  Jew.  Every  family 
was  viewed  as  a  state  in  miniature,  an  image  or 
simulacrum  of  that  great  commonwealth  of  which  it 
w^as  a  part,  and  whose  laws  it  was  bound  to  mirror. 
The  word  piety,  which  receives  its  origin  from  him, 
means  originallj  the  affection  of  a  son  for  a  father, 
the  devotion  of  a  member  to  the  head  of  a  family. 
The  derivation  is  significant.  It  shows  that  in  the 
mind  of  the  Eoman  the  idea  not  only  of  religion  but 
of  morality  was  inseparable  from  the  State,  insep- 
arable from  the  relation  of  the  subordinate  to  the 
superior.  And  it  is  highly  significant  of  this  fact 
that  the  word  "patriotism,"  which  is  also  derived 
from  him,  means  by  etymology  the  love  of  country 


9  99. 


Messages  of  the  Old  Religions. 


viewed  as  a  family  and  a  home.  It  was  because  the 
Itoman  and  the  Jew  reverenced  equally  the  origin 
and  the  climax  of  things,  that  they  each  found  a 
place  in  their  system  both  for  the  family  and  for 
the  nation.  The  family  represented  the  small  be- 
ginning, the  stream  out  of  which  the  nation  rose; 
the  nation  represented  the  family  completed,  the 
perfect  development  of  the  individual  household. 

But  if  Eome  had  one  aspect  turned  towards  Judea, 
she  had  another  side  turned  towards  the  natural 
opposite  of  Judea  —  Greece.  From  Greece  Eome 
borrowed  wholesale.  She  conquered  Greece  by 
arms,  but  she  allowed  Greece  to  conquer  her  by 
peace.  She  took  the  Hellenic  gods  into  her  Pan- 
theon and  bowed  down  before  them.  She  changed 
their  names,  indeed;  she  called  Zeus  Jupiter,  and 
Poseidon  Neptune,  and  Ares  Mars,  and  Athene 
Minerva.  Along  with  their  names  she  changed  also 
much  of  their  garments ;  she  stripped  them  of  their 
beautiful  and  poetic  dress,  and  clothed  them  in 
commonplace  and  prosaic  attire.  But  when  all  was 
said  and  done,  they  were  still  the  old  gods ;  they 
were  reduced  in  personality,  but  they  preserved  their 
original  function.  Now,  this  is  one  of  the  hetero- 
genous things  in  the  Eoman  system.  We  should 
have  expected  that  a  religion  which  started  from  the 
basis  of  morality  and  reverenced  the  abstraction  of 
law,  would  have  lifted  up  its  eyes  to  an  abstract  and 
invisible  Lawgiver.     This  was  what  Judea  did,  and 


The  Message  of  Rome.  223 

in  this  Judea  was  consistent.  But  Eome  was  con- 
tent to  be  inconsistent.  What  she  wanted  was  union 
— a  principle  of  co-operation  amongst  the  nations,  of 
which  she  herself  would  be  the  centre.  To  secure 
this  she  was  willing  to  pay  any  price — to  sacrifice 
logic,  consistency,  symmetry.  If  the  stones  of  other 
temples  were  content  to  be  incorporated  in  her 
Pantheon,  she  on  her  part  was  willing  to  receive 
them  without  perfect  cement.  Accordingly,  she  took 
the  gods  of  Greece  as  they  were — the  personifica- 
tions of  the  forces  of  a  world  existing  in  a  state  of 
struggle.  It  was  for  a  state  of  struggle  that  she 
wanted  them.  Her  problem  was  not  how  to  reach 
a  higher  life,  but  how  to  make  the  best  of  this  life. 
She  did  not  desire  the  minds  of  her  citizens  to  be 
centred  on  the  things  above ;  she  wished  them  to  be 
fixed  on  the  things  below.  She  desired  that  they 
should  reverence  the  empire  itself,  that  their  religion 
should  be  bounded  by  the  length  and  the  breadth, 
the  height  and  the  depth  of  its  possibilities.  She 
sought  the  aid  of  no  gods  with  any  other  end  than 
this.  If  they  did  not  minister  to  the  needs  of  the 
empire,  there  was  no  other  need  to  which  she  wished 
them  to  minister.  Her  very  morality  was  a  utilitarian 
morality.  Lofty  as  it  was  in  its  aspirings,  and  severe 
as  it  was  in  its  requirements,  it  was,  still,  ever  con- 
templated as  a  means  and  not  an  end.  If  the  Eoman 
was  to  be  courageous,  it  was  because  he  belonged  to 
a  military  nation.      If  he   was  to  be  just,  it  was 


224  Messages  of  the  Old  Religions. 

because  he  was  only  one  member  of  a  vast  empire 
where  vastness  could  not  be  preserved  without  the 
perfect  adjustment  of  all  its  parts.  The  empire  itself 
was  the  real  object  of  his  reverence,  and  nothing  else 
was  reverenced  except  in  so  far  as  it  ministered  to 
this.  In  incorporating  the  gods  of  Greece,  he  was 
mainly  infl  uenced  by  the  fact  that  the  gods  of  Greece 
were  no  transcendental  product.  He  was  attracted  by 
their  earthliness.  He  was  impelled  to  receive  them, 
because  he  saw  that  they  did  not  set  up  a  high 
standard,  did  not  profess  to  represent  perfection. 
He  perceived  that  their  worship  would  not  lift  the 
national  mind  out  of  its  nationality,  would  not  draw 
it  away  from  the  contemplation  of  mundane  things, 
specially  from  the  contemplation  of  imperial  inter- 
ests. Himself  of  an  unpoetic  nature,  and  more  prone 
to  reverence  the  strong  than  the  beautiful,  he  was 
willing  to  recognise  these  forms  of  aesthetic  beauty, 
provided  they  would  consent  to  favour  the  growth  of 
his  power. 

But  here  there  arises  a  third  aspect  of  the  Eoman 
religion,  and  one  in  which  it  differs  essentially  from 
cither  of  the  two  foregoing.  I  have  said  tliat  tlie 
main  end  of  Eoman  morality  was  the  service  of  the 
empire.  In  this  service,  however,  tliere  was  de- 
manded, when  occasion  required,  a  readiness  for  the 
sacrifice  of  life  which  can  nowhere  else  be  found  out 
of  India.  Materialistic  and  utilitarian  as  is  the 
Ptoman  genius,  there  is  blended  with  it  an  element 


The  Message  of  Borne.  225 

which  originally  had  its  source  in  that  which  is  the 
reverse  of  materialism  aucl  the  opposite  of  utilitarian 
— the  element  of  Buddhism.  Li\'ing,  as  he  does,  for 
this  world  in  its  most  external  aspect  and  its  most 
mundane  interests,  the  Eoman,  in  the  earlier  stages 
of  his  history,  is  prepared,  in  the  defence  of  these 
interests,  to  exhibit  a  sacrifice  which  is  purely  un- 
worldly, and  a  self-surrender  which  is  distinctly 
spiritual.  One  has  only  to  read  the  pages  of  his 
opening  story  in  order  to  be  impressed  with  the  fact 
that,  from  whatever  source  it  has  come,  there  has 
entered  into  his  religion  a  breath  of  Indian  worship. 
Mythical  as  in  most  of  its  parts  that  early  story  is, 
its  very  mythology  reveals  the  presence  and  the  in- 
fluence of  this  thought  of  self-abnegation.  Again 
and  again  we  are  confronted  by  the  spectacle  of  a 
man  sacrificing  himself  for  his  country,  offering  up 
his  own  life  to  appease  that  wrath  of  the  gods  which 
is  supposed  to  have  brought  calamity  upon  the  for- 
tunes of  his  native  land.  Such  stories  would  not  be 
told  if  the  ideal  of  heroism  which  they  teach  did  not 
exist  in  the  national  mind.  The  very  word  religion, 
which  is  a  word  derived  from  Eome,  implies  in  its 
most  probable  etymology^  that  a  man's  primary  duty 
is  self-sacrifice.     It  signifies  a  binding  back,  a  re- 

^  The  etymology  I  refer  to  is  that  which  derives  it  from  religare. 
See  Augustin,  De  Civitate  Dei,  x.  3,  edit,  of  Benedictiues,  Paris, 
1838  ;  and  Lactantius,  Insti.  Div.,  iv.  28.  Cicero,  however, 
derives  it  from  rcUyere  (Xat.  Deor.,  ii.  28). 

P 


226  Messages  of  the  Old  Fuiigions. 

straint  of  the  individual  life.  Each  man  is  viewed 
as  a  victim  bound  to  an  altar  of  sacrifice.  His  being 
is  offered  up  not  really  to  the  gods  but  to  the  State ; 
the  office  of  the  gods  is  simply  to  approve  and  to 
reward.  The  man  is  at  all  times  called  upon  to 
regard  himself  as  a  possible  sacrifice  to  his  country's 
good,  as  one  who  may  at  any  moment  be  required  to 
become  an  expiation  for  some  national  sin.  It  is 
highly  significant  that  when  a  great  Christian  teaclier 
wanted  to  exhibit  Christianity  as  an  atonement  of 
the  one  for  the  guilt  of  the  many,  he  embodied  his 
view  in  an  epistle  to  the  Bomans.  He  could  not 
have  sent  it  to  a  better  quarter,  nor  to  a  quarter  more 
likely  to  appreciate  it.  The  Jew  had  no  adequate 
sense  of  what  was  required  from  the  individual  man  ; 
he  offered  animal  sacrifices  for  the  wellbeing  of  the 
theocratic  kingdom.  The  Eoman  in  this  respect  saw 
deeper.  He  saw  that  if  a  kingdom  of  heaven  was  to 
be  reached  on  earth,  it  must  be  reached  through  the 
surrender  of  each  for  all,  through  the  willingness  of 
every  individual  to  give  himself  up  for  the  whole. 
This  was  not  Jewish,  but  it  was  Indian.  It  was  a 
practical  manifestation  of  Buddhism  with  the  old 
intensity  but  with  a  new  motive.  It  was  no  longer 
a  sacrifice  for  the  sake  of  death;  its  aim  was  the 
conservation  and  intensification  of  the  national  life. 
Yet  it  sought  its  end  by  the  old  means — the  Bud- 
dhist means.  It  called  upon  the  individual  to  sur- 
render at  the  outset  all  individual  desires,  to  give  up 


The  Message  of  Borne.  227 

liis  own  personality,  to  resign  his  own  interests.  It 
called  upon  liiiu  to  view  himself  only  as  one  member 
of  a  vast  body,  and  a  member  which  ought  to  be  am- 
putated if  the  wants  of  the  body  required  it.  It 
incorporated  with  Western  civilisation  a  breath  of 
the  Eastern  day,  and  united  to  the  activity  of  Europe 
the  passive  sacrificialness  of  Asia. 

Nor  in  this  wondrous  Pantheon  which  thus  sought 
to  collect  the  varied  thoughts  of  men,  was  there  alto- 
gether wanting  a  place  for  Parsism.  It  is  the  last 
form  of  thought  which  we  should  have  expected  to 
have  had  a  place  there.  Parsism  started  originally 
from  exactly  the  opposite  basis.  The  earliest  vision 
of  Piome  was  a  vision  of  unity ;  the  earliest  vision 
of  Persia  was  a  vision  of  duality.  Pome  from  the 
outset  beheld  the  prospect  of  a  world  gathered  around 
one  centre ;  Persia  began  by  seeing  the  impossibility 
of  a  common  centre.  One  would  have  thought  that 
a  form  of  faith  which  saw  in  this  world  an  empire 
divided  between  two,  could  never  have  been  incor- 
porated in  a  creed  which  proclaimed  an  empire 
governed  by  one  only.  Yet  in  the  creed  of  Pome 
there  is  found  such  an  incorporation.  It  comes  out 
with  great  prominence  in  its  doctrine  of  good  and 
evil  geniuses — in  the  belief  that  families  and  indi- 
viduals may  be  advanced  or  retarded  by  the  patron- 
age or  by  the  opposition  of  some  spiritual  power. 
Just  as  in  the  Persian  hierarchy  there  were  angels 
that  fought  for  Ormuzd  and  angels  that  strove  for 


228  Messages  of  the  Old  Religions. 

Aliriman,  so  in  the  popular  mythology  of  Eome  there 
were  spirits  which  aided  the  life  and  there  were 
spirits  which  impeded  its  progress.  The  medieval 
doctrine  of  f^uardian  ancjels  on  the  one  hand  and  of 
besetting  demons  on  the  other,  has  its  parentage  in 
classic  and  pagan  soil ;  it  is  a  survival  of  that  Eoman 
culture  in  the  midst  of  which  Western  Christianity 
has  its  cradle.  That  Eome  took  it  from  Persia  I  do 
not  believe ;  but  she  took  it  from  a  phase  of  human 
nature  which  Persia  made  her  own.  She  adopted 
it  through  her  eclectic  tendency  to  give  a  place  to 
everything,  to  iind  room  in  her  constitution  for  all 
forms  of  man.  Nor  was  there  wanting  an  element 
in  her  nature  which  made  even  this  phase  of  faith 
in  some  sense  congenial.  Eome  from  the  outset 
felt  that  her  mission  was  conquest,  that  the  unity 
to  which  she  aspired  could  only  be  purchased  by 
struggle.  It  was  not  wholly  inappropriate  that  the 
struggle  whicli  she  experienced  in  politics  should  be 
accepted  also  in  the  realm  of  spirit,  and  that  tlie 
battle  between  strength  and  weakness  should  be 
accompanied  by  the  strife  between  the  powers  of 
good  and  evil. 

I  have  given  tliese  illustrations  merely  as  speci- 
mens, as  representative  instances  of  that  great  prin- 
ciple on  which  the  Eoman  constitution  acted.  That 
principle  was  one  of  incorporative  union.  The  mes- 
sage of  Eome  to  the  religious  world  was  essentially 
a  message  of  peace.     It  sought  to  put  an  end  to  all 


The  Message  of  Rome.  229 

clashings  by  allowing  room  for  the  co-existeuce  of 
contrary  tendencies,  whether  these  tendencies  be- 
longed to  the  world  of  politics  or  to  the  sphere  of 
religion.  As  in  the  world  of  politics  it  gave  per- 
mission to  the  existence  of  empires  within  the 
empire,  in  the  sphere  of  religion  it  gave  permission 
to  the  existence  of  faiths  within  the  faith.  Tlie 
one  great  faith  of  Eome  was  the  belief  in  her  own 
destiny,  the  maintaining  and  enlarging  of  her- 
self. She  was  willing  to  incorporate  within  her 
temple  every  shrine  that  would  favour  such  an  end. 
The  bond  of  unity  which  she  sought  between  the 
different  religions  of  men  was  the  bond  of  a  com- 
mon devotion  to  the  political  interests  of  the  empire. 
Hers  is  the  earliest  attempt  to  reach  an  evangeli- 
cal alliance  in  the  etymological  sense  of  that  ex- 
pression,—  to  promulgate  a  message  which  shall 
furnish  a  meeting -place  for  the  messages  of  other 
faiths.  This  is  the  true  significance  of  the  Eoman 
religion,  the  secret  of  its  protracted  stability,  and 
the  cause  of  its  long  success.  Yet  it  has  not  been 
ultimately  successful ;  its  attempt  at  union  has 
eventually  proved  a  failure.  With  the  destruction 
of  Eome's  political  fabric,  the  slirines  incorporated 
within  her  temple  have  again  been  severed.  The 
unity  of  faith  which  she  has  sought  to  secure  has 
melted  as  utterly  as  the  unity  of  empire  which 
she  actually  established,  and  the  fall  of  the  one 
has    been    contemporaneous    with   the   fall    of    the 


230  Messages  of  the  Old  Religions. 

other.  Tlie  question  is,  Why  ?  What  is  the  reason 
that  tlie  earliest  attempt  at  religious  union,  based 
as  it  was  on  such  a  broad  foundation,  and  con- 
ducted on  such  a  princely  scale,  has  proved  in  the 
long-run  so  entirely  abortive  ?  Why  is  it  that  an 
effort  so  persistently  planned,  and  for  a  time  so 
brilliantly  achieved,  has  left  behind  it  even  fewer 
traces  of  its  influence  than  those  which  survive  of 
the  effort  at  political  unity  ?  The  answer  to  a  ques- 
tion so  suggestive  and  so  practical  demands  the  con- 
sideration of  a  separate  chapter. 


The  Message  of  Borne,  231 


CHAPTER    XI. 


THE  SUBJECT   CONTINUED. 


The  peculiarity  of  the  Eoman  religion  does  not  lie 
in  its  identification  with  State  interests ;  this  is  an 
attribute  which  it  shares  in  general  with  the  whole 
ancient  world.^  What  distinguishes  the  religion  of 
Eome  from  surrounding  and  from  past  religions,  is 
its  effort  to  construct  a  universal  Church  by  the 
formation  of  a  universal  State.  Of  course,  in  the 
old  regime,  the  former  was  inevitably  involved  in 
the  latter  ;  if  State  and  Church  were  one,  the 
securing  of  a  universal  dominion  was  the  securing 
of  a  universal  Church.  The  peculiarity  of  the 
Eoman  worship  lies  in  the  fact  that  it  did  secure 
an  absolute  dominion  by  becoming  the  worship  of 
an  absolute  State.  And  it  is  out  of  this  fact  that 
the  great  problem  arises,  Why  lias  it  failed  ?  If 
it  had  not  succeeded  in  its  aim,  there  would  be  no 

^  Canon  Westcotb  points  out  that  the  history  of  the  Gentile 
world  exhibits  a  gradual  process  of  the  secularising  of  religion 
('Gospel  of  the  Resurrection/  2d  edit  ,  chap,  i,,  xxxiv.). 


232  Messages  of  the  Old  Religions. 

room  for  wonder ;  but  having  succeeded,  why  has  it 
proved  abortive  ?  The  idea  at  which  Eome  aimed 
is  by  no  means  an  obsolete  idea;  on  the  contrary, 
it  is  one  of  the  most  modern  things  in  ancient 
liistory.  The  conception  of  a  civic  Church,  of  a 
Church  which  shall  regulate  its  membership  not 
by  creed  but  by  character,  not  by  services  done 
for  the  sanctuary  but  by  duties  done  for  man,  is 
one  that,  with  the  advance  of  civilisation,  has  more 
and  more  been  coming  to  the  front.  In  countries 
holding  the  Protestant  principle,  it  has  been  espe- 
cially and  increasingly  powerful,  and  it  finds  in 
modern  England  a  growing  number  of  advocates.^ 
It  is  distinctively  a  Western  conception,  and  it  had 
its  home  and  origin  in  the  "West  —  in  that  great 
empire  which  sought  to  embrace  the  world.  What 
is  the  reason  that,  as  devised  and  promulgated  by 
this  empire,  the  scheme  has  proved  so  illusory  ?  Why 
has  the  most  gigantic  effort  to  promote  it  been  the 
most  conspicuous  for  its  failure  ? 

In  inquiring  into  a  subject  of  this  kind,  the  first 
question  ought  to  be  a  consideration  of  the  formula 
under  which  it  is  proposed  to  compass  religious 
union.  All  religious  union  must  be  on  the  ground 
of  some  formula.     Home's  formula  I  would  express 

1  I  find,  for  example,  this  view  advocated  by  Mr  W.  T.  Stead  in 
an  article  entitled  "The  Civic  Church,"  in  a  periodical  styled 
'Help,'  supplement  to  the  'Review  of  Reviews,'  March  1892,  vol. 
ii.,^^o.  3. 


The  Message  of  Rome.  233 

thus,  "  Whatever  gods  exist,  exist  for  the  sake  of  the 
Eoman  State."  It  mattered  not  whether  they  actu- 
ally existed,  provided  that  those  who  believed  in 
them  would  recognise  them  as  patrons  of  the  gov- 
ernment. Now,  I  concede  at  the  outset  that  this 
formula  has  an  advantage  over  most  other  formulas, 
both  ancient  and  modern  ;  it  is  based  not  on  the 
recognition  of  a  fact  but  on  tlie  expression  of  a 
desire.  The  Eoman  creed  is  virtually  a  prayer;  it 
unites  men  by  the  subscription  to  one  article — 
the  obligation  to  aspire  towards  the  wellbeing  of 
the  republic.  I  have  always  felt  that  if  ever  a 
creed  shall  be  formed  which  shall  obtain  universal 
suffrage,  it  shall  be  on  such  a  basis — the  basis  of 
a  common  prayer.  I  have  sometimes  imagined  that 
a  subscription  to  the  Lord's  Prayer  would  consti- 
tute a  point  of  union  not  only  for  all  Christians, 
but  for  some  who  are  popularly  regarded  as  outside 
the  pale  of  Christianity.  It  seems  to  me  that  the 
Eoman  formula  constitutes  the  only  deliberate  at- 
tempt which  has  been  made  in  the  direction  of  a 
creed  based  on  aspiration,  and  it  is  probably  to 
this  that  it  owes  what  measure  of  success  it  has 
attained.  The  question  remains  wdiy  it  has  not 
been  successful  throughout.  The  principle  of  the 
formula  is  good  and  makes  for  union ;  why  has  it 
not  achieved  union  ?  Clearly  there  must  be  some- 
thing defective  in  the  formula  itself,  something 
which  has   nullified   or  weakened  the  force  of    the 


234  Messages  of  the  Old  Bclirjions. 

aspiration.     A  moment's  consideration  will  show  us 
that  it  is  here  where  the  vitiating  element  lies. 

The  object  contemplated  by  Eoman  religion  is  the 
identification,  of  the  Church  with  the  State.  It  aspires 
to  make  the  religious  duty  of  man  coincident  with 
his  political  duty.  The  question  is,  If  such  a  union 
were  perfected  in  all  the  members  of  the  body  politic, 
would  it  amount  to  a  religion  of  humanity  ?  And 
the  answer  must  be,  No ;  it  is  exactly  here  that 
the  religion  of  Kome  has  failed  in  its  design.  It 
would  have  been  a  very  different  matter  if  Eonie 
had  contemplated  the  identification  of  the  State 
with  the  Church, — if  she  had  said  that  every  man, 
by  reason  of  the  act  of  worship,  was  entitled  to 
political  privileges.  But  when  she  said  that  the 
Church  was  to  be  identified  with  the  State,  she 
really  limited  the  Church.  The  State  as  under- 
stood by  Eome  was  not  coextensive  with  the  Church 
as  understood  by  Christianity.  The  Church  as  un- 
derstood by  Christianity  comprehends  every  man 
who  is  willing  to  recognise  his  own  weakness; 
the  State  as  understood  by  Eome  comprehended 
only  tliose  men  who  were  able  to  exercise  certain 
political  powers.  Accordingly,  when  Eome  made  the 
Church  identical  with  the  State,  she  really  cut  off 
from  religious  membership  a  vast  section  of  human- 
ity. There  were  in  the  Eoman  empire,  there  are  in 
every  empire  under  heaven,  a  multitude  of  human 
beings  who  have  no  relation  to  the  State  except  that 


The  Message  of  Rome.  235 

of  hindrance— who  are  simply  a  blot  and  a  barrier 
upon  the  constitution  and  the  progress  of  the  body 
politic.  In  modern  life  it  is  generally  conceded  that 
it  is  the  duty  of  the  State  to  care  for  these ;  but 
the  very  statement  implies  that  they  are  a  drag 
upon  the  wheels  of  the  social  fabric,  that  they  con- 
stitute one  of  the  elements  which  prevent  any  State 
from  being  a  perfect  government.  There  are  those 
who  are  so  defective  in  body  as  to  be  incapable  of 
bearing  their  part  in  the  conflict  of  life.  There  are 
those  who  are  so  defective  in  intellect  as  to  be  in- 
capable of  realising  what  it  is  to  be  in  conflict. 
There  are  those  who  are  so  defective  in  morality 
that  they  are  led  to  the  commission  of  crime  with 
an  instinct  seemingly  as  unerring  as  that  by  which 
the  bee  is  led  to  the  construction  of  its  hive.  Xo 
one  will  maintain  that  these  are  members  of  a  State 
as  such ;  no  one  will  contend  that  they  are  anything 
less  than  a  retardation  of  the  political  mechanism. 
If,  therefore,  the  Church  be  identified  with  the  State, 
it  logically  follows  that  the  Church  is  to  be  barri- 
caded from  a  large  section,  and  that  the  most  needy 
section,  of  humanity. 

Eome  saw  the  logical  consequence,  and  she  did 
not  shrink  from  it.  It  was  in  her  power  to  have 
altered  or  relaxed  her  formula;  she  preferred  to 
abide  by  it,  and  to  accept  the  inevitable  conclusion. 
That  conclusion  was  the  sternest  imaginable ;  it 
practically  consigned  to   oblivion  some  millions  of 


236  Messages  of  the  Old  Religions. 

the  human  race.  The  mentally  and  bodily  defec- 
tive were  no  aid  to  the  movement  of  State  mechan- 
ism. Eome  said,  "Let  them  be  taken  out  of  the 
way."  She  not  only  said  it,  but  up  to  her  power 
she  did  it.  She  laboured  by  every  means  to  sup- 
press incompetents.  She  had  not  found  the  secret 
of  suppressing  their  incompetency ;  the  shortest  and 
easiest  method  she  knew  was  to  annihilate  them. 
She  sought  to  lay  the  axe  to  the  root  of  the  tree. 
She  recommended  infanticide  in  cases  of  deformity, 
desertion  of  infants  in  cases  of  hopeless  destitution. 
She  exposed  the  life  of  the  slave  to  the  sword  of  the 
gladiator.  She  inculcated  as  a  doctrine  of  moral 
heroism  the  practice  of  suicide  when  any  life  was 
too  hard  to  bear.  She  left  unprovided  those  forms 
of  mental  alienation  which,  because  they  are  not 
seen  on  the  surface  and  not  recognised  in  the  first 
stage  of  development,  were  allowed  to  escape  the 
remedy  of  infanticide. 

These  blots  on  the  Eoman  constitution  are  popu- 
larly regarded  as  a  sign  of  the  low  religious  life  to 
wliich  the  old  world  had  sunk,  a  sign  of  how  little 
power  the  religion  of  the  empire  really  possessed 
to  influence  the  lives  of  its  members.  And  yet  a 
moment's  reflection  should  convince  us  that  this  is 
not  the  legitimate  conclusion.  It  certainly  proves 
that  the  religion  of  the  empire  was  a  form  of  faith 
very  defective  in  theory  and  very  inadequate  in 
scope ;   but  it  does  not  prove   that  it   was   a   form 


Tlie  Message  of  Bom  e.  237 

of  faith  which  had  lost  its  practical  influence.  The 
conclusion  is  exactly  the  contrary.  It  \Yas  not  by 
a  fall  from  its  religious  principle  that  Eome  became 
neglectful  of  the  maimed  masses  of  society ;  it  was 
precisely  by  the  carrying  out  of  its  religious  prin- 
ciple. Eome  neglected  the  maimed  bodies  in  the 
State  because  her  principle  of  religion  taught  her  to 
regard  these  as  no  part  of  the  State.  She  was  never 
more  religious  than  in  the  cold  eye  she  turned  towards 
the  halt  and  the  blind.  It  was  no  impulse  of  impiety 
which  prompted  her  to  pass  these  by  on  the  other 
side,  which  induced  her  to  seek  for  their  elimina- 
tion and  extermination.  It  would  hardly  be  too 
much  to  say  that  in  her  neglect,  and  even  in  her 
seeming  cruelty,  she  acted  under  the  impulse  of 
religion,  under  the  impulse  of  that  faith  which  she 
had  made  her  own.  Her  ideal  was  empire;  her 
worship  was  the  reverence  of  empire ;  her  religion 
was  the  service  of  empire.  To  her  the  good  citizen 
and  the  pious  devotee  were  one.  The  religious  duty 
of  every  man  was  to  support  those  influences  which 
made  for  the  welfare  of  the  State;  it  was  equally 
his  duty  to  discourage  and  to  suppress  those  influ- 
ences which  impeded  the  welfare  of  the  State.  In 
his  efforts  to  eliminate  hindrances,  in  his  attempts 
to  extinguish  incompetents,  in  his  measures  to  re- 
press the  multiplication  of  those  noxious  or  useless 
growths  which  interfered  with  the  life  of  the  col- 
lective body,  he  might  well  on  his  principles  believe 


238  Messages  of  the  Old  Pieligions. 

that  he  was  doing  piety  good  service.  The  error  of 
Home  must  be  sought,  not  in  lier  unfaithfuhiess  to 
her  religious  ideal,  but  in  tlie  defectiveness  of  tliat 
ideal  itself.  The  object  of  her  reverence  was  not 
being  but  force,  not  existence  but  energy,  not  thought 
but  action.  She  valued  everything  for  what  it  could 
do,  measured  everything  by  its  dynamical  result.  She 
had  no  place  in  her  Pantheon  for  that  whicli  had 
no  arithmetical  significance.  She  rated  every  man 
by  what  he  could  bring,  valued  every  man  by  the 
amount  of  strength  he  could  add  to  the  republic. 
If  he  could  bring  nothing — if,  instead  of  contribut- 
ing to  the  State,  he  required  the  State  to  contribute 
to  him — he  was  there  and  then  regarded  as  a  blot 
on  tlie  political  constitution,  and  a  hindrance  which 
ought  to  be  got  rid  of. 

The  effect  of  this  appeared  in  the  sequel.  Eome 
ended  by  reverencing  an  incarnation  or  embodi- 
ment of  that  political  power  which  liad  always  in 
the  abstract  been  the  object  of  her  adoration;  she 
ultimately  worshipped  her  own  emperor.  Let  us 
understand  the  significance  of  this  act :  it  has  been 
often  misunderstood,  and  it  has  frequently  been 
misinteipreted.  In  books  wTitten  with  a  view  to 
show  the  downward  tendency  of  Paganism,  it  lias 
been  often  said  that  the  heathen  world  reached  the 
lowest  depth  of  its  abasement  in  the  Pioman  deiti- 
cation  of  the  human.  There  is  a  famous  antithetical 
sentence  whicli   has   expressed    tlie    thought   thus: 


Th e  Message  of  Bom  e.  239 

"The  living  God  became  man  at  the  time  when  a 
living  man  was  worshipped  as  God."  And  yet 
nothing  is  more  certain  than  tlie  fact  that  tlie 
antithesis  between  the  religion  of  Christ  and  the 
relii^ion  of  Eome  does  not  lie  here.  So  far  is  the 
deification  of  the  human  from  being  the  last  stage 
of  a  downward  development,  there  is  no  stage  of 
religious  development  which  is  not  founded  upon 
this  article.  I  have  already  exhibited  the  principle 
that  not  only  the  root  but  the  very  presupposition 
of  all  religion  is  the  belief  in  incarnation,  the  belief 
that  the  human  is  in  the  image  of  the  divine. 
Without  this  presupposition  the  only  alternative  is 
agnosticism,  and  agnosticism  without  end.  If  the 
divine  be  different  in  essence  from  the  human,  there 
is  no  possible  communion  in  any  world  between 
the  human  and  the  divine.  It  speaks  volumes  for 
the  discernment  of  Judaism  that,  although  by  nature 
prone  to  emphasise  to  the  uttermost  the  distance 
between  God  and  man,  it  asserted  from  the  ^'ery 
foundation  that  man  was  made  in  the  image  of 
God.  In  recognising  in  man  the  stamp  of  divinity, 
Eome  was  in  strictest  alliance  with  the  whole  de- 
velopment of  religion. 

But  the  point  of  divergence  lay  in  her  ideal  of 
man  himself.  It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that,  in 
conferring  divine  honours  uj^on  her  emperor,  Eome 
erred  not  by  deifying  man  too  much  but  by  deifying 
him  too  little.     Her  doctrine  of  incarnation,  instead 


2 10  Messages  of  the  Old  Bcligions. 

of  going  too  far,  did  not  go  far  enough.  Her  error 
consisted  in  putting  the  crown  of  divinity  on  only 
a  part  of  humanity,  and  in  leaving  uncanonised  the 
other  part.  When  Eome  put  the  divine  crown 
upon  the  head  of  her  emperor,  she  deified  the  in- 
carnation of  power.  She  selected  from  all  the 
attributes  of  humanity  this  one  attribute,  and  im- 
pressed it  with  the  stamp  of  divinity.  She  said  that 
the  one  element  in  man  worthy  to  be  reverenced 
and  fit  to  be  consecrated  was  his  capacity  to  put 
in  motion  the  physical  forces  of  the  universe.  Slie 
deified  him  in  his  power  to  move  masses,  in  his 
ability  to  wield  the  sword,  in  his  strength  to  con- 
struct empires,  in  his  force  to  exact  and  maintain 
obedience.  She  reco2;nised,  in  short,  the  incarnation 
of  humanity  in  so  far  as  humanity  was  capable  of 
becoming  a  State-power.  The  defect  of  this  ideal 
was  its  narrowmess.  It  lay,  not  as  some  think,  in 
tlie  presumption  of  the  creature,  but  in  the  creature 
failing  to  aspire  sufficiently  high.  It  did  not  exalt 
a  large  enough  number  of  the  elements  of  man.  In 
crowning  his  capacity  for  the  exercise  of  physical 
power,  it  left  in  the  background  other  and  more 
glorious  capacities.  It  forgot  to  note  that  there 
were  attributes  in  the  human  spirit  which  ex- 
hibited a  divine  strength  precisely  in  their  in- 
capacity to  exercise  physical  power.  It  omitted  to 
observe  that  there  is  a  force  which  consists  not  in 
doing  but  in  bearing,  a  strength  which  lies  not  in 


The  Message  of  Rome.  241 

acting  but  in  lying  passive.  It  was  oblivious  of 
the  fact  that  in  the  display  of  this  strength  there 
inidit  be  manifested  a  heiofht  of  heroism  and  a 
depth  of  human  resources  compared  with  which  all 
the  past  achievements  of  the  empire  were  but  the 
exhibitions  of  child's-play.  Eome  failed  to  realise 
the  union  of  humanity  because  she  failed  to  perceive 
the  many-sidedness  of  man. 

Now,  it  is  here  that  there  emerges  the  real  con- 
trast between  the  latest  growth  of  the  Eoman 
religion  and  the  manifestation  of  that  faith  which 
arose  in  the  very  midst  of  the  empire — the  gospel 
of  Jesus  Christ.  The  difference  between  them  lay 
not  in  the  idea  that  the  one  glorified  the  creature 
and  the  other  did  not.  Strictly  speaking,  they  both 
glorified  the  creature — both  took  hold  of  a  human 
life  and  lifted  it  into  the  presence  of  the  divine. 
Tlie  difference  lay  in  the  fact  that  the  life  which 
Christianity  lifted  into  the  presence  c)f  tlie  divine 
was  a  life  of  larger  and  fuller  humanity  than  that 
which  Piome  exalted.  Piome  crowned  humanity 
only  in  one  of  its  aspects — the  aspect  of  physical 
power.  Christianity  crowned  man  all  round,  in 
every  sphere  of  his  nature,  in  every  promise  and 
potence  of  his  life.  It  deitied  him  as  the  prophet, 
the  priest,  and  the  king,  and  in  so  doing  it  ex- 
hausted all  the  possible  fields  of  his  action.  When 
it  deified  him  as  the  king,  it  was,  so  far,  in  unison 
with   the  Eoman   empire ;    it  recognised  the  truth 


242  Messages  of  tlte  Old  Beliyions. 

tliat  there  is  indeed  sometbiiig  godlike  in  man's 
power  over  the  physical  forces.  AVhen  it  wor- 
shipped him  as  the  prophet,  it  was  in  unison  Loth 
with  the  Greek  and  with  the  Jew;  it  recognised 
the  truth  that  in  the  revelations  of  human  thouglit 
and  in  the  glimpses  of  poetic  genius  there  are  seen 
the  flashes  of  a  light  divine.  But  when  it  adored 
him  as  the  priest,  it  was  in  unison  neither  with 
Ptoman  nor  Greek  nor  Jew ;  it  transcended  all,  or 
rather,  it  went  down  beneath  all.  It  took  up  a  part 
of  humanity  which  had  always  been  regarded  as  its 
contemptible  part  —  the  susceptibility  to  pain.  It 
put  a  crown  upon  the  head  of  that  in  man  whicli 
had  hitherto  been  despised  by  man  himself.  It 
proclaimed  a  doctrine  which  to  the  old  world  was 
certainly  a  paradox.  It  said  tliat  the  kingdom  of 
God  recognised  amongst  the  trophies  of  its  glory  a 
multitude  of  souls  whom  the  kingdoms  of  this  world 
regarded  as  State  hindrances.  It  declared  that  man 
might  be  as  great  in  his  weakness  as  in  his  strengtli, 
as  heroic  in  his  pain  as  in  his  power.  The  priest 
liad,  even  with  the  Jew,  existed  as  a  representative 
of  human  nothingness  ;  with  Christianity  he  stood 
forth  as  a  representative  of  something  whicli  in 
man  was  divine  —  the  power  to  be  touched  with 
the  feeling  of  infirmities. 

Hence  it  is  that  the  incarnation  taught  by  Chris- 
tianity has  been  more  thorough  and  fearless  than 
the  incarnation  taught  by  Eome.     The   religion   of 


The  Message  of  Rome.  243 

Christ  has  prevailed  over  the  religion  of  Eome, 
simply  from  the  fact  that  it  has  been  less  afraid  to 
exalt  the  human  soul.  Eome  only  canonised  man 
as  an  emperor  ;  Christianity  proclaimed  the  essential 
sacred ness  of  humanity  in  all  its  attributes.  There 
arose  in  the  heart  of  the  Eoman  empire  the  con- 
ception of  another  empire  called  the  kingdom  of 
heaven.  It  partook  somewhat  of  the  soil  in  which 
it  grew.  It  aimed  at  finding  a  meeting-place  for  all 
thinGjs — a  brotherhood  amonojst  the  nations  and  a 
point  of  union  with  the  divine.  But  it  aimed  at 
more  than  that.  It  was  not  content  to  establish 
a  brotherhood  of  nations;  it  w\anted  a  brotherhood 
of  souls.  It  was  not  satisfied  to  find  a  point  of 
union  with  the  divine;  it  desired  the  divine  and 
the  human  to  be  united  along  the  whole  line.  It 
called  itself  the  kingdom  of  heaven,  not  to  separate 
itself  from  the  kingdoms  of  earth,  but  to  indicate 
its  wider  comprehensiveness  than  any  earthly  king- 
dom. It  proposed  to  found  a  State  which  should 
embrace  amidst  its  members  not  only  the  active  but 
the  passive  units.  It  proclaimed  for  the  first  time 
to  the  world  what  has  since  become  a  commonplace 
— that  they  also  serve  who  only  stand  and  wait. 
In  that  aphorism  there  is  at  once  involved  an 
enlargement  of  the  whole  idea  of  empire.  The 
conception  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven  was  itself  a 
revelation  to  the  old  world.  It  told  men  that  they 
had  made  an  inadequate  census  of  the  population, 


244  Messages  of  the  Old  Religions. 

that  they  had  failed  to  enrol  in  tlie  State  the  full 
complement  of  its  members.  It  told  them  that  they 
had  not  snliiciently  estimated  the  actual  strength  of 
any  community,  that  in  limiting  their  view  to  the 
labourers  and  ignoring  the  heavy-laden,  they  liad 
left  out  of  account  the  strongest  proof  of  national 
resources,  the  highest  evidence  of  imperial  power. 
When  it  included  within  its  borders  the  heavy-laden 
as  well  as  the  labouring,  it  for  the  first  time  reached 
the  idea  of  a  State  coextensive  with  the  Church,  be- 
cause coextensive  with  the  needs  of  humanity. 

It  was  fated,  then,  that  the  message  of  Rome 
should  be  actually  fulfilled  within  its  own  dominions 
and  within  its  own  era.  It  was  to  be  fulfilled, 
however,  not  by  Home  herself,  but  by  another  and 
a  humbler  power.  The  office  of  Eome  was,  after  all, 
only  that  of  John  the  Baptist;  she  prepared  the 
way.  Her  relation  to  Christianity  was,  indeed,  no 
merely  negative  one.  She  did  not  simply,  as  cliurch 
historians  affirm,  help  to  create  a  longing  for  the 
light  by  increasing  the  power  of  darkness.  Her 
contribution  to  the  world  was  a  contribution  of 
light,  and  of  light  in  the  direction  of  Christianity. 
She  aimed  at  the  construction  of  a  universal  king- 
dom, and  in  so  doing  she  was  on  the  lines  of  the 
coming  faith.  Her  error  was  that  her  universal 
kingdom  did  not  embrace  a  universal  humanity. 
She  gained  all  that  she  sought,  but  she  sought  too 
little.     The  Roman  empire  was  less  comprehensive 


Tlie  Mcssarje  of  Borne.  245 

than  the  kingdom  of  lieaven,  and  it  was  less  com- 
prehensive because  it  was  less  microscopic.  It 
measured  forces  too  much  by  tlie  extensiveness  of 
their  range,  and  too  little  by  the  intensiveness  of 
their  pressure.  It  incorporated  tlie  length  and  the 
breadth,  but  not  the  de^^tli  of  humanity.  Tlie  king- 
dom of  heaven  went  down  to  the  roots  of  human 
nature — to  its  wants,  to  its  sins.  If  I  were  allowed 
to  express  the  difference  epigrammatically,  I  would 
say  that  the  religion  of  Eome  and  the  religion  of 
Jesus  were  united  in  the  first  three  petitions  of  that 
Christian  aspiration  called  the  Lord's  Prayer.  Eome 
said  with  Christianity,  "  Hallowed  be  Thy  name " ; 
she  was  prepared  to  assert  and  to  maintain  the 
dignity  and  the  solemnity  of  that  imperial  structure 
which  she  reverenced.  She  said  with  Christianity, 
"  Thy  kingdom  come " ;  her  perpetual  prayer  was 
for  the  establishment  of  her  ideal  kingdom.  She 
said  with  Christianity,  ''  Thy  will  be  done " ;  she 
undertook  no  enterprise  until  she  had  first  inquired 
whether  that  enterprise  should  be  favoured  by 
heaven.  But  there  the  concord  ended  and  the 
difference  began.  When  Eome  passed  from  the 
divine  to  the  human,  she  proceeded  to  halt  in  her 
petitions.  She  had  no  prayer  for  the  pure  and 
simple  forgiveness  of  moral  debts ;  she  could  only 
ask  what  atonement  would  be  accepted  by  the  gods. 
She  had  no  prayer  to  be  led  out  of  the  way  of 
temptation ;   she  depreciated  the  danger  on  this  side 


2  46  Messages  of  tlic  Old  Edigions. 

of  life.  Slie  liad  not  even  an  nnqiialitied  prayer  for 
the  distribution  of  daily  bread  ;  she  had  not  learned 
the  full  sense  of  the  word  "  ourT  Eome  had  a 
distinct  mission,  but  it  was  not  a  mission  of  finality  ; 
she  must  be  content  to  occupy  the  place  and  to 
bear  the  reputation  of  a  forerunner.  Her  crowning 
glory  must  rest  in  the  fact  that  she  devised  a  scheme 
of  religious  union  the  largest  and  the  most  com- 
prehensive  which  the  ancient  w^orld  had  ever  seen, 
that  she  made  an  honest  and  earnest  attempt  to 
carry  out  that  scheme  into  practical  realisation, 
and  that  she  succeeded  in  the  attempt  in  a  measure 
far  beyond  what  could  have  been  anticipated  from  a 
mechanism  which,  after  all,  was  constructed  of  such 
inadequate  materials. 


The  Message  of  the  Teuton,  247 


CHAPTER    XII. 

THE  MESSAGE  OF  THE  TEUTON. 

The  name  "  Teuton  "  is  the  term  under  which  are 
comprehended  the  Scandinavian  and  German  races. 
Letween  both  the  speech  and  the  mythology  of 
these  races  there  exists  a  very  close  affinity.^  The 
result  is  that,  notwithstanding  the  varieties  of  detail 
which  distinguish  the  worship  of  their  different 
nations,  there  is  one  common  spirit  pervading  the 
whole.  The  contrariety  indeed  seems  to  exist  in 
another  direction.  It  does  not  strike  us  so  much 
when  we  survey  the  aspect  of  the  ancient  Teuton 
nations,  as  when  we  compare  the  ancient  aspect  with 
the  modern.  It  seems  strange  at  first  sight  that  the 
religion  of  the  ancient  Teutons  should  be  so  different 
from  the  spirit  of  the  modern  Germans.  Between 
the  earliest  and  the  latest  forms  of  most  faiths  we 
can  detect  a  strong  analogy.  China,  through  all  the 
changes  of  the  centuries,  has  retained  her  original 

^  See  Jacob  Grimm's  'Teutonic  Mythology,'  of  which  there  is  an 
excellent  English  translation. 


248  Mcssajcs  of  the  Old  H el i// ions. 

bias.  India,  through  the  circles  of  the  suns,  has 
preserved  her  native  spirit.  Ev^en  Rome,  amid  the 
complete  transformation  of  her  Pagan  into  her  Chris- 
tian life,  has  retained  certain  marked  resemblances 
which  indicate  to  the  eye  of  the  observer  that  he 
is  looking  on  the  same  fabric.  But  when  we  turn 
to  modern  Germany,  we  seem  to  find  an  utter  con- 
trast between  the  past  and  the  present.  The  lapse 
of  time  which  intervenes  between  the  life  of  the 
ancient  and  the  life  of  the  modern  Teuton  is  not 
so  great  as  the  lapse  of  time  which  intervenes  be- 
tween the  life  of  ancient  and  the  life  of  modern 
Eome.  And  yet,  in  the  former  case,  the  gulf  is  far 
wider  and  the  hiatus  far  more  marked  than  in  the 
latter.  There  is  an  analogy  between  the  saints  of 
the  Eoman  calendar  and  the  gods  of  the  Eoman 
Pantheon ;  but  where  shall  we  find  an  analogy  be- 
tween the  speculations  of  the  modern  German  and 
the  faith  of  the  primitive  Teuton  ?  The  one  is  tlio 
ancestor  of  the  other,  yet  the  chasm  betwixt  them 
appears  impassable.  Modern  Germany  is  confessedly 
the  sphere  of  the  highest  theological  culture  and  of 
the  most  abstruse  religious  thinking;  primitive  Teu- 
tonisni  is  on  the  surface  the  most  crude  of  all  beliefs 
and  the  most  childish  of  all  worsliips.  Is  there  any- 
where to  be  found  a  bridge  that  connects  them,  any- 
where a  point  of  union  between  the  dawn  and  the 
meridian  day  ? 

I  think  there  is.     If  we  look  closely  and  beneath 


Th e  Message  of  ill e  Teuton.  249 

the  surface,  we  shall  see  that  there  are  features  in  the 
Teuton  mythology  which  reveal  something  behind 
them.  AVe  shall  see,  above  all  things,  that  this 
mythology  does  not  exhibit  a  uniform  surface ;  that, 
however  crude  it  may  be,  it  is  at  least  decreas- 
ingly  crude.  Every  mythology  exhibits  variety  ;  the 
Teuton  mythology  reveals  progress  in  its  variety. 
It  is  here  that,  I  think,  the  real  bridge  is  to  be 
found  between  the  old  faith  and  the  new,  between 
the  religion  of  the  primitive  Teuton  and  the  relig- 
ion of  the  modern  German.  If  w^e  take  the  Teuton 
mythology  as  a  whole,  and  confine  ourselves  to  its 
distinctive  elements,  we  shall  find  that  its  message 
to  the  world  is  summed  up  in  a  single  word — 
development.  It  is  here  that,  in  my  opinion,  the 
point  of  difference  lies  between  this  mythology  and 
earlier  mythologies.  It  has  features  in  common 
with  the  earliest  creed  of  India,  with  the  primitive 
worship  of  Greece,  and  with  the  original  faith  of 
Eome ;  but  it  differs  from  these  in  the  fact  that  hero 
we  have  features  of  development.  If  it  be  so,  we  are 
ushered  into  immediate  contact  with  the  modern 
spirit  of  the  Teuton  race.  The  spirit  of  modern 
Germany  is  essentially  that  of  evolution.  Even 
from  medieval  days  it  has  been  the  pioneer  of  human 
progress,  and  in  the  nineteenth  century  it  has  led 
the  van.  To  the  German  races,  in  whatever  land 
they  have  been  called  to  dwell,  has  been  committed 
the  task  of  revealing  the  development  of  humanity. 


250  Messages  of  the  Old  Beligions. 

Tlie  pliilosophy  of  Hegel  has  traced  back  that  de- 
velopment on  tlie  lines  of  spirit ;  tlie  philosophy  of 
Parwin  has  traced  it  back  on  the  lines  of  matter; 
but  both  liave  equally  had  one  aim — to  exhibit  the 
connection  between  the  future  and  the  past.  If  the 
Teuton  mythology  can  be  proved,  even  amidst  its 
crudeness  and  rudeness,  to  have  evinced  a  glimmer- 
ing sense  of  the  unity  of  history,  we  shall  plant  our 
feet  upon  the  bridge  that  identifies  the  old  spirit 
with  the  new. 

I^Tow,  there  is  one  element  in  this  Teuton  myth- 
ology which  deserves  careful  attention.  It  is  tlie 
fact  that,  notwithstanding  the  fantastic  nature  of 
its  materials,  these  materials,  when  taken  together, 
blend  themselves  into  a  system.  I  waive  altogether 
any  reference  to  its  cosmogony,  although  even  there, 
I  think,  it  would  be  possible  to  trace  a  plan  of 
progressive  development.  But,  dealing  as  I  am  with 
the  element  of  religion  itself,  I  shall  here  as  else- 
where confine  myself  to  the  view  taken  of  the 
heavenly  powers.  It  would  not  be  at  all  remarkable 
that  the  Teuton  mythology  should  describe  a  progress 
in  the  acts  of  creation.  But  what  strikes  me  as 
very  remarkable  is  that  this  mythology,  when  taken 
as  a  whole,  describes  a  progressive  development  in 
the  life  of  the  gods  themselves.  Nowhere  does  the 
ancient  Teuton  mind  approach  so  near  to  the  modern 
Teuton  mind  as  in  the  fact  here  indicated.  The 
peculiarity  of  German  philosophy  has  not  been  its 


The  Message  of  the  Teuton.  251 

attempt  to  trace  a  development  in  history ;  that  has 
been  done  by  many  systems.  Its  peculiarity  lies 
in  its  endeavour  to  show  that  the  development  of 
human  history  is  the  development  of  the  divine 
mind.  It  is  this  which  constitutes  at  once  its  bold- 
ness and  its  originality.  But  if  it  sliould  be  found 
that  this  tendency  exists  in  the  Teuton  races  from 
the  beginning,  if  it  should  be  seen  that  it  belongs  to 
the  earliest  as  well  as  to  the  latest  phase  of  German 
thought,  it  will  furnish  a  strong  presumption  that 
the  message  of  the  Teuton  has  been  one  distinctive 
to  himself,  and  one  which  by  nature  he  of  all  others 
has  been  best  qualified  to  give. 

Xow,  we  find  that  the  history  of  the  gods  em- 
braced in  this  Teuton  mythology  consists  of  three 
ages.  The  first  age  is  a  period  of  peace ;  it  is  a 
time  in  which  the  heavens  are  silent,  free  from 
war,  undisturbed  by  commotion — a  time  in  which 
the  industrial  arts  flourish,  and  the  value  of  life  is 
measured  by  the  amount  of  its  beneficial  resources. 
This,  in  the  Teuton  mythology,  is  represented  as  the 
golden  age.  It  is  rather  curious  that  it  should  be 
so.  A  man's  conception  of  heaven  is  in  general 
only  a  transference  into  the  air  of  the  state  in 
which  he  lives  on  earth.  But  the  state  in  which 
the  Teuton  lived  on  earth  was  a  state  of  war.  The 
beings  whom  he  deifies  are  representatives  of  those 
powers  of  nature  which  are  distinguished  for  their 
strength — a  fact  which  proves  conclusively  that  in 


252  Messages  of  the  Old  Bclirjions. 

the  world  of  his  day  the  power  most  needed  was 
the  capacity  for  conflict.  At  the  head  of  tlie  Pan- 
theon stands  AYoden,  a  name  symbolic  of  all  phys- 
ical majesty  and  all  warlike  strength.  On  a  step 
heneath  him  is  Thor,  the  god  of  cloud,  rain,  and 
thunder,  enormously  strong,  and  wielding  a  hammer 
that  can  split  the  mountains.  Next  comes  Tin — 
professedly  the  god  of  battle,  the  source  of  martial 
honour,  the  inspirer  of  military  prowess.  At  a 
considerably  lower  remove  stands  Loki,  the  being 
who  presides  over  the  element  of  fire,  and  who  is 
in  future  to  develop  into  the  great  adversary  of 
goodness.  But  the  strange  thing  is  that  he  is  not 
yet  become  Satan ;  he  has  at  the  outset  his  place 
amongst  the  angels.  Should  we  not  have  expected 
that  a  race  like  the  early  Teutons,  living  amidst 
perpetual  war,  and  feeling  every  day  the  neces- 
sity for  a  strong  protective  hand,  would  have  in- 
vested the  adversary  from  the  beginning  with  his 
aspect  of  Satanic  terror,  and  represented  the  fields 
of  heaven  as  from  the  outset  fields  of  incessant 
battle  ? 

Yet  the  first  stage  of  the  Teuton  mythology  is 
peace.  The  natural  conclusion  is  that  the  first  stage 
of  his  liistory  had  been  peace,  that  originally  he  had 
lived  in  a  state  of  primitive  simplicity,  the  memory 
of  which  still  lingered.  I  do  not  think  he  would 
have  assigned  this  to  the  gods  if  he  had  not  experi- 
enced it  and  enjoyed  it  in  himself,  for  our  ideals  of 


The  Message  of  the  Teuton.  253 

heaven  were  first  our  ideals  of  earth.  There  are 
traces,  too,  in  this  early  Pantheon  of  the  existence 
of  such  a  time.  Side  by  side  with  the  gods  of  mus- 
cular strength,  there  are  seats  for  female  divinities. 
AYherever  the  divinity  of  woman  is  recognised,  it 
may  be  assumed  that  in  the  national  life  there  has 
once  been  an  element  of  culture.  When  I  learn 
from  the  hymns  of  ancient  India  that  she  had  a 
place  in  her  early  Pantheon  for  the  female  side 
by  side  with  the  male,  I  know  assuredly  that  in 
the  early  life  of  the  race  there  was  no  place  for 
tlie  zenanas ;  women  could  never  have  been  ad- 
mitted to  the  fellowship  of  the  gods  above,  if  they 
had  been  secluded  from  the  fellowship  of  men  below. 
Even  so,  when  in  the  mythology  of  the  ancient 
Teuton  I  read  of  female  divinities  dwelling  beside 
the  sons  of  thunder — when  I  hear  of  Trigga,  the 
goddess  of  the  inhabited  earth,  free,  beautiful,  lov- 
able ;  when  I  am  told  of  Freyja,  the  Yenus  of  the 
Teutons,  representing  the  softer  emotions  of  the 
heart,^  I  am  led  to  the  inevitable  conclusion  that 
there  was  a  time  in  which  peace  and  not  war  was 
both  the  practice  and  the  ideal.  I  am  constrained 
to  believe  that  the  first  ac^e  of  the  Teuton  was  an 
age  of  more  culture  than  the  second,  and  that  it 

^  It  is  true  that  in  the  elder  Edda,  Freyja  is  represented  as 
dividing  the  slain  with  Woden,  but  this  is  probably  the  result  of 
the  corruption  of  first  ideals.  Edda  is  the  name  given  to  two  col- 
lections of  national  myths — the  elder  compiled  in  the  twelfth,  the 
younger  in  the  thirteenth  centujy. 


254  Messages  of  the  Old  Rdirjions. 

was  through  the  lingering  memory  of  that  culture 
that  he  made  the  beginning  of  heaven  a  scene  of 
calm. 

By-anJ-by  the  curtain  falls  upon  this  scene,  and 
wlien  it  rises  again  there  is  a  complete  change.  The 
calm  is  broken  and  the  storm  has  begun.  If  the 
first  age  is  a  day  of  peace,  the  second  is  a  night  of 
war.  The  heavens  of  the  new  period  are  no  longer 
in  calm  but  in  commotion.  Loki  has  revealed  him- 
self in  his  true  colours.  He  has  ceased  to  be  the 
servant ;  he  has  become  the  adversary,  the  Satan. 
He  has  sot  himself  in  deliberate  antagonism  to  the 
powers  of  heaven,  and  has  become  the  origin  of  evil. 
In  so  doing,  he  has  become  at  the  same  time  the 
origin  of  good,  for  the  one  cannot  be  known  without 
the  other.  Hitherto  the  life  of  the  gods  had  been 
neither  good  nor  evil;  it  had  been  simply  natural. 
They  had  dwelt  in  peace,  merely  because  there  was 
no  place  for  war,  no  opposition  to  the  original  cur- 
rent of  the  stream.  But  with  the  rebellion  of  Loki 
the  opposition  began,  and  along  with  it  came  the 
revelation  of  the  tree  of  knowledge.  The  appearance 
of  war  for  the  first  time  revealed  peace.  Before  this 
time  peace  had  been  an  unconscious  possession ;  war 
made  it  a  realised  possession.  Accordingly,  it  is 
significant  that,  with  tlie  emergence  of  Loki  upon 
the  scene,  there  emerges  also  another  being  on  the 
other  side — Balder.  If  Loki  is  the  principle  of  evil, 
Balder  is  the  first  conscious  and  deliberate  principle 


'The  Message  of  the  Teuton.  255 

of  good.  The  legends  that  surround  his  name  con- 
stitute some  of  the  most  beautiful  portions  of  the 
Edda.  He  is  the  personification  of  all  possible 
virtues.  He  is  transcendently  beautiful,  possessing  a 
form  of  radiant  light  He  is  immaculately  pure,  and 
into  his  heavenly  mansion  nothing  unclean  can  enter. 
In  him  are  united  the  attributes  at  once  of  tlie  male 
and  the  female.  Like  Thor,  he  is  also  the  son  of 
Woden,  and  therefore  in  him  there  are  found  the 
traces  of  martial  firmness.  His  judgments  are  irre- 
versible and  beyond  repeal ;  in  this  appear  the  quali- 
ties of  the  male.  But  the  female  is  represented  in 
the  mode  of  execution.  The  outward  r(^gime  is  one 
of  conspicuous  mildness ;  force  has  given  place  to 
persuasion,  and  the  influence  of  mind  has  succeeded 
to  the  rod  of  authority.  Balder,  in  short,  seems  to 
me  to  represent  the  effort  to  find  a  union  between 
the  gold  of  the  ideal  past  and  the  iron  of  the  actual 
present.  He  unites  in  his  own  person  the  calm  of 
the  one  and  the  strength  of  the  other.  He  stands 
as  a  symbol  of  the  truth  that  gentleness  needs  not 
be  weakness,  that  silence  is  not  incompatible  with 
power,  and  that  the  intuitions  of  a  feminine  nature 
may  express  a  decision  of  character  which  is  un- 
matched by  any  exhibition  of  merely  muscular  force. 
■  Let  us  pursue  the  narrative.  The  powers  of  good 
and  evil  are  now  for  the  first  time  face  to  face  with 
one  another.  A  conflict  is  inevitable,  and  we  stand 
breathlessly  expecting  the  issue.     Balder  also  stands 


25 G  Messages  of  the  Old  Reliyions. 

in  expectation,  and  liis  expectation  is  of  the  most 
gloomy  character.  His  forebodings  are  of  the  worst. 
He  is  tormented  by  horrible  dreams,  in  which  he  sees 
himself  extinguished  by  the  powers  of  evil.  It  is 
a  fine  and  subtle  indication  of  tlie  fact  that  the  bur- 
den of  sin  falls  upon  the  sinless,  and  that  the  shadow 
forecast  by  wickedness  obscures  most  the  path  of  the 
good.  To  assuage  the  dreams  of  Balder,  his  mother, 
Fricjcja,  takes  an  oath  of  allecjiance  from  all  creation. 
She  exacts  a  promise  from  every  object  in  the  uni- 
verse that  it  will  do  her  son  no  hurt, — from  every 
object  but  one.  Slie  forgets  tlie  mistletoe  ;  she  prob- 
ably thought  it  too  contemptible  a  thing  to  be  dan- 
gerous, too  parasitic  a  thing  to  have  any  indepen- 
dent efficacy.  She  ignored  it  by  reason  of  its  small- 
ness,  and  because  its  life  was  so  closely  attached  to 
other  lives.  That  one  act  of  negligence  becomes  the 
death  of  Balder.  The  gods,  by  way  of  experiment, 
throw  missiles  at  him  composed  of  darts,  stones,  and 
all  things  supposed  to  be  of  greatest  natural  danger, 
and  when  he  remains  unhurt  by  these,  they  are  com- 
forted as  to  his  safety.  But  the  real  danger  lies  in 
the  apparently  soft  and  inoffensive  thing.  The  dan- 
ger of  sin  is  not  its  openness  but  its  subtleness,  its 
resemblance  to  that  which  is  good  and  pure.  That 
this  is  the  thought  of  the  myth  is  to  my  mind  be- 
yond all  question.  The  missile  that  destroys  Balder 
is  not  only  the  seemingly  harmless  mistletoe,  but  it 
is  the  mistletoe  thrown  by  tlie  hand  of  one  who  is 


The  Message  of  the  Teuto'ii.  257 

blind.  Loki,  the  principle  of  evil,  does  not  discharge 
the  dart  himself ;  he  guides  to  the  enterprise  the 
hand  of  a  sightless  being — the  war-god,  Other.  Will 
any  one  say  that  such  a  conception  is  accidental  ? 
Can  it  be  thought  for  a  moment  that  a  convergence 
of  circumstances  so  unlikely  and  so  inappropriate 
could  have  been  dictated  by  anything  but  the  delib- 
erate design  of  establishing  a  particular  idea  ?  And 
is  it  not  as  clear  as  daylight  that  the  idea  designed 
to  be  established  is  the  subtlety  of  the  power  of  sin  ? 
Is  it  not  manifest,  almost  on  the  surface,  that  the 
Teuton  is  struggling  to  embody  the  truth  that  the 
danger  of  temptation  to  a  human  soul  is  not  its 
ugliness  but  its  plausibleness  ?  He  wishes  to  give 
expression  to  his  belief  that  the  snare  which  besets 
the  heart  of  youth  lies  not  in  the  attraction  to  any 
form  of  sin  revealed  as  sin,  but  in  the  fact  that  sin 
prefers  every  form  to  its  own,  and  habitually  clothes 
itself  in  the  disguise  of  purity.  In  rude  figures,  in 
coarse  emblems,  in  imperfect  metaphors,  the  mind 
of  the  Teuton  has  given  utterance  to  a  truth  as  old 
as  creation  and  as  modern  as  the  latest  day— that 
the  serpent  is  more  subtle  than  any  beast  of  the 
field. 

Let  us  still  pursue  the  narrative.  Balder  is  slain 
by  the  mistletoe  ;  goodness  is  blotted  out  from  the 
world  by  the  subtlety  of  evih  When  it  is  blotted 
out  its  power  begins  to  be  felt.  Balder  is  never  so 
greatly  reverenced  as  when  he  is  gone ;  the  strength 

li 


258  Messages  of  the  Old  Religions. 

of  his  presence  is  for  the  first  time  realised  by  the 
blank  of  his  absence.  There  is  a  universal  weeping 
amongst  the  gods,  and  a  deputation  is  sent  to  the 
goddess  of  the  grave  supplicating  his  return.  It  is 
answered  tliat  the  prayer  will  be  granted,  provided 
that  all  things  living  and  dead  shall  mourn  his  loss. 
The  condition  is  almost  universally  fulfilled.  Every 
object  in  creation,  whether  in  liea\en  or  on  eartli, 
mourns  for  Balder,  with  one  solitary  exception — an 
emissarv  of  the  Power  of  evil.  It  is  a  strikino:  alle- 
gory  of  the  permeating  influence  of  goodness.  It  rep- 
resents the  truth  that  every  department  of  nature, 
is  in  some  sense  indebted  to  morality.  For  is  it  not 
true  that  the  loss  of  Balder  is  a  loss  to  all  things, 
even  to  things  which  originally  seemed  to  occupy  a 
foreign  soil  ?  Is  it  not  true  that  poetry  owes  half 
its  beauty  to  tlie  moral  sentiment,  that  art  is  largely 
indebted  to  the  sacrificial  instincts  of  the  soul,  that 
eloquence  receives  its  point  and  f(jrce  from  the 
promptings  of  right  and  wrong,  that  warlike  prowess 
has  its  root  as  much  in  the  conscience  as  in  the  arm, 
that  success  in  life  is  powerfully  influenced  by  the 
concentration  of  moral  purpose,  and  that  the  polit- 
ical ties  which  bind  a  nation  are  closely  or  feebly 
riveted  in  proportion  to  the  social  ties  that  bind  tlie 
family  ?  All  this  was  felt  by  the  Teuton  mind,  and 
all  this  is  expressed  in  the  fact  that  creation  wee[)s 
for  Inalder.  Living  amid  the  sinews  of  war,  the  liardy 
Norseman  had  discernment  enougli  to  perceive  that 


TJi c  Message  of  tli e  Teuton.  259 

the  sinews  of  war  could  never  form  the  body  of  a 
State.  He  perceived  tliat  the  root  of  all  strength  was 
something  behind  it — that  very  element  of  morality 
which  is  popularly  thought  to  be  the  source  of  soft- 
ness. He  saw  that  to  loose  the  mind  from  its  ethical 
moorings  was  to  dissolve  the  whole  fabric,  social  and 
])olitical,  and  to  reduce  to  a  collection  of  atoms  that 
structure  of  imperial  power  which  he  believed  to 
dwell  in  the  region  of  the  heavens. 

Accordingly,  we  are  not  surprised  to  find  that  to 
the  mind  of  the  Xorseman  the  death  of  Balder  be- 
comes the  beginning  of  all  calamities.  The  demand 
for  his  return  has  been  almost  universal,  but  not 
altogether;  it  has  been  resisted  by  the  Power  of 
evil.  By  that  one  act  of  resistance  his  return  is 
rendered  as  impossible  as  if  the  whole  world  had 
opposed  it.  And  the  loss  is  total.  "We  must  re- 
member that  in  the  conception  of  the  Xorseman,  the 
death  of  Balder  is  not  merely  the  loss  of  an  in- 
dividual; it  is  the  extinction  of  an  ideal.  I  have 
often  been  struck  with  the  words  of  St  Paul  in 
1st  Corinthians  ii.  8,  where  he  says  that  if  the 
princes  of  the  Eornan  empire  had  only  known  the 
secret  of  their  national  strength  ''  they  wouM  not 
have  crucified  the  Lord  of  Glory."  Ife  is  cleiirly 
speaking  of  a  moral  and  not  a  physical  crucifixion. 
He  feels  that  what  the  princes  of  this  world  wanted 
to  do  was  not  simply  to  put  a  man  to  death,  but 
to  put  an  idea  to  death ;  that  what  they  desired  to 


260  Messages  of  the  Old  Beliyions. 

crucify  was  not  tlie  outward  life  of  Jesus,  but  the 
thought  of  Him,  the  spirit  of  Him,  the  ideal  of 
Him.  And  it  is  just  because  the  deatli  of  Christ 
was  to  them  tlie  death  of  an  ideal  tliat  Paul  liolds 
them  to  have  made  a  mistake.  He  tells  them  that, 
by  taking  away  from  the  young  men  of  their  em- 
pire the  portrait  of  moral  heroism  exhibited  in  tlie 
Man  of  Xazareth,  they  have  deprived  the  spirit 
of  youth  of  its  greatest  and  noblest  stimulus,  have 
deprived  theui  of  that  very  physical  courage  on 
whose  foundation  they  have  mainly  sought  to  build. 
Such,  in  more  extended  form,  I  conceive  to  have 
been  the  thought  expressed  in  the  Teuton's  grief 
for  Balder.  It  is  the  cry  not  over  a  man  but  over 
an  ideal,  the  tears  for  the  departure  of  one  who  is 
not  simply  an  individual  but  the  embodiment  and 
incarnation  of  moral  purity  itself.  Hence  in  his  loss 
the  Teuton  sees  the  loss  of  all  things.  He  forecasts 
his  mythology  into  the  future,  and  it  is  a  forecast 
of  gloom.  He  sees  a  deepening  of  the  conflict 
between  the  Powers  of  hell  and  heaven,  and,  ever 
increasingly,  hell  prevails.  It  is  in  vain  that  Loki 
is  chained  to  the  subterranean  sulphur  spring;  he 
bursts  his  bonds  and  is  free.  There  is  seen  ap- 
proaching a  time  of  unheard-of  tribulation— a  time 
which  the  Eddas  signalise  as  "  the  twilight  of  the 
gods."  It  is  a  time  of  cutting  frost,  of  piercing 
winds,  of  sunless  air,  of  winter  without  spring.  It 
is  a  time  of  war  and  bloodshed,  when  nation  shall 


Tlte  Message  of  the  Teuton.  261 

rise  against  nation,  and  when,  above  all,  a  man's 
foes  shall  be  those  of  his  own  household.  The 
father  shall  be  at  variance  with  the  child,  the 
brother  shall  lift  his  hand  against  the  brother,  the 
ties  of  the  household  shall  be  rent  in  twain.  At 
last  the  crisis  shall  come ;  the  Powers  of  good  and 
evil  shall  gather  themselves  together  for  a  final  con- 
flict—  the  Armageddon  of  the  Teuton  mythology. 
On  the  plain  of  Yigrid  shall  be  fought  the  great 
battle  that  is  to  decide  the  fate  of  the  universe. 
It  is  to  be  a  battle  of  unexampled  fury,  of  pro- 
tracted tenacity,  and  of  mutual  destructiveness.  The 
two  contending  hosts  are  alike  to  be  annihilated. 
Loki,  the  Power  of  evil,  is  to  fall,  but  Woden  and 
Thor  are  also  to  perish.  At  last  the  heat  of  battle 
is  to  set  fire  to  the  universe.  In  the  warmth  of 
conflict  there  is  to  be  kindled  a  spark  which  shall 
dissolve  both  friends  and  foes,  and,  like  a  mimic 
scene,  this  whole  vast  creation  shall  disappear  in 
lurid  flame.  The  earth  shall  be  burned  up,  the 
elements  shall  melt  with  fervent  heat,  the  powers 
of  the  heavens  shall  be  shaken,  and,  over  the  spot 
where  raged  the  roar  of  battle,  universal  silence 
shall  reign. 

And  here  the  curtain  falls  upon  the  second  great 
epoch  of  the  Teuton  mythology.  Neither  of  the 
two  epochs  has  attained  perfection.  The  first  was 
the  age  of  innocence,  when  there  was  virtue  in 
heaven,  simply  from  the  fact  that  there  was  no  war ; 


262  Messages  of  the  Old  Jleligiuns. 

it  was  sinlessness  in  the  absence  of  temptation.  Tlie 
second  was  the  age  of  conflict,  when  the  existing 
state  of  things  was  resisted  by  the  Power  of  evil, 
and  Balder  appeared  as  the  antagonist  of  Loki;  it 
was  no  longer  the  age  of  innocence  but  the  age  of 
law.  Yet  very  sublimely  is  it  said  that,  even  in 
this  time  of  comparative  advancement,  the  days  for 
Balder  had  not  come.  Balder  w\as  the  personifica- 
tion of  holiness,  and  holiness  is  just  as  incompatible 
with  conflict  as  with  innocence.  He  cannot  live  in 
a  world  where  there  is  a  struggle  of  the  will;  he 
demands  a  surrendered  will  The  reign  of  law  can- 
not exist  side  by  side  with  the  reign  of  grace,  for 
law  is  virtue  by  restraint,  grace  is  virtue  by  nature. 
Accordingly,  Balder  had  to  go  away  until  the  times 
of  conflict  were  completed.  Th3  beauties  of  holiness 
could  only  exist  in  spontaneity,  and  the  presence 
of  contending  hosts  was  the  absence  of  spontaneity. 
If  Balder  should  come  back,  it  must  be  by  the  anni- 
hilation of  the  hosts  that  contended,  and  by  the 
destruction  of  that  age  of  restraint  which  is  incom- 
patible with  spontaneous  love. 

But  now  this  second  age  has  been  destroyed,  and 
on  both  sides  the  contending  hosts  are  still.  The 
age  of  conflict  has  followed  the  age  of  innocence ;  it 
has  ceased  to  be.  Out  from  the  universal  silence 
there  comes  a  new  voice  of  creation.  From  the 
under-world,  from  the  world  of  the  dead  below  the 
sea,  Balder  returns.      In   the  place  where   the  old 


The  Message  of  the  Teuton.  2G3 

paradise  stood  there  rises  a  lle^y  abode  for  the  good, 
• — an  abode  of  perfect  beauty  and  of  waveless  peace. 
Here  is  to  begin  afresh  the  life  of  humanity,  on 
a  larger  scale  and  with  higher  possibilities.  Yet, 
very  significantly,  it  is  suggested  that  tliere  is  to 
be  a  thread  of  continuity  between  the  old  life  and 
the  new.  The  inhabitants  of  the  revived  world  are 
to  find  the  golden  tablets  which  their  race  had 
possessed  at  the  beginning  of  time.  It  is  a  striking 
metaphor  of  the  belief  that  the  state  to  which  they 
have  finally  attained  had  its  germ  in  the  state  from 
which  they  originally  came.  The  abode  of  the  gods 
had  been  originally  the  home  of  spontaneous  virtue. 
It  was  a  spontaneity  which  came,  indeed,  only  from 
ignorance  ;  none  the  less  was  it  the  natural  and 
normal  state  of  man.  By-and-by  the  spontaneity 
was  broken  by  the  conflict  on  the  Mount  of  Tempta- 
tion, and  innocence  fled  away,  never  to  return.  But 
though  the  innocence  could  never  return,  the  spon- 
taneity could.  There  are  two  ways  in  which  a  life 
may  become  spontaneous ;  it  may  be  so  by  ignor- 
ance of  conflict,  or  it  may  be  so  by  overcoming 
conflict.  The  former  method  was  past,  and  past  for 
ever,  but  the  latter  method  was  to  come.  There  was 
to  open  an  age  like  the  first,  yet  different,  an  age 
in  which  virtue  was  asjain  to  become  natural  to  man, 
but  in  which  the  naturalness  was  to  spring  not  from 
ignorance  but  from  habit.  It  was  to  be  an  age  in 
which  the   life   of  the   universe  was  once  more  to 


264  Messages  of  the  Old  Religions. 

become  a  life  of  peace,  no  longer  merely  becanse 
there  were  no  materials  for  war,  but  because  tlie 
materials  for  war  had  been  seen  and  discarded.  The 
third  state  of  the  Teuton,  in  short,  was  to  be  a  new 
paradise,  exhibiting  all  the  appearances  of  the  Gar- 
den of  Eden,  but  exhibiting  them  on  a  totally  op- 
posite ground — on  the  ground  of  a  virtue  which  had 
met  and  conquered  the  tempter,  and  become  by  that 
conquest  the  undisputed  master  of  the  field. 

Will  it  be  said  that  the  view  I  have  here  taken 
attributes  to  the  Teuton  an  amount  of  subtlety 
beyond  the  reach  of  a  primitive  age  ?  I  answer 
that  conscious  mythology  is  necessarily  subtle. 
Mythology,  as  I  take  it,  cannot  belong  to  a  primi- 
tive age;  it  marks  rather  the  twilight  than  the 
dawn  of  early  religious  belief.  It  indicates  the 
sta^e  in  which  the  forms  of  nature  are  no  Ioniser 
sufficient  of  themselves,  and  can  only  preserve  their 
reverence  by  receiving  the  clothing  of  the  mind. 
Mythology  is  in  every  instance  an  effort  of  the 
poetic  imagination — an  effort  to  make  one  thing 
wear  the  attributes  of  another,  and,  as  such,  it 
demands  and  involves  a  long  course  of  thought 
and  a  considerable  power  of  culture.  Subtlety, 
therefore,  is  inseparable  from  conscious  mythology, 
and  the  only  question  is  whether  the  explanation 
I  have  given  is,  in  the  circumstances,  the  most  natu- 
ral. It  is  only  fair  to  state  that  mine  is  but  one 
attempt  out  of  many.     Tlie  ex[)lanations  of  the  myth 


The  Message  of  tlte  Teuton.  265 

of  Balder  have  been  beyond  measure  numerous.^ 
It  lias  been  a  favourite  practice  to  see  in  it  an 
allegorical  exposition  of  the  outward  processes  of 
nature.  Max  Miiller,  for  example,  regards  it  as 
designed  to  describe  the  conflict  between  the 
winter  and  the  summer  —  the  temporary  sub- 
mergence of  nature  beneath  frost  and  snow,  and  its 
ultimate  rising  in  the  spring.  I  do  not  deny  it.  It 
seems  to  me  beyond  all  question  that  the  Teuton 
perceived  the  conflict  of  his  life  in  the  struggles  of 
the  orb  of  day.  But  why  did  he  perceive  them 
there  ?  Simply  because  he  had  first  felt  them  in 
himself.  We  are  so  familiar  with  the  metaphor  of 
the  sun  struggling  through  clouds  as  to  be  in  dan- 
ger of  forgetting  that  it  is  a  metaphor.  There  is 
nothing  in  the  fact  of  the  sun  making  its  way 
gradually  through  clouds  that  could  ever  suggest 
the  idea  of  struggle,  if  that  idea  were  not  already  in 
the  mind.  The  idea  of  struggle  is  a  purely  mental 
conception ;  it  is  derived  from  consciousness  alone. 
It  is  received  by  our  experience  of  a  sense  of  resist- 
ance, by  our  meeting  with  some  impediment  to  the 
exercise  of  the  will.  AVhen,  therefore,  I  look  up  to 
the  heavens  and  figure  there  the  battle  between 
light  and  darkness,  I  attribute  to  the  heavens  some- 
thing which  exists  in  myself  alone.  I  paint  upon 
the  walls  of  the  universe  a  thouciht  which  belonri-s 

<->  o 

^  For  a  review  of  this  subject  see  Weinhold,  "Die  sagen  von  Loki," 
in  Ilaupt's  '  Zeitsclirif t  fiir  Dcutsclies  AUerthum'  (Leip.,  lS-49). 


2G6  Messages  of  the  Old  Bdigions. 

only  to  inj  own  spirit,  and  which  never  could  have 
been  known  at  all  except  through  the  movements  of 
that  spirit.  I  write  upon  the  doors  of  the  outward 
world  an  inscription  which  belongs  to  my  inner 
nature,  and  seem  to  receive  from  without  an  im- 
pression which  has  really  been  imported  from 
within. 

It  is  in  vain,  therefore,  to  say  that  the  Teuton 
derived  his  conception  of  Balder  from  beholding  the 
])henomena  of  the  heavens  ;  it  is  true,  but  it  is 
irrelevant.  If  he  derived  his  conception  from  the 
heavens,  it  was  because  he  had  first  given  it  to  the 
heavens.  The  alternations  of  the  outward  light  had 
been  to  him  simply  a  mirror  in  which  he  had  seen 
reflected  the  movements  of  his  own  soul.  AVhen  he 
constructed  the  idea  of  Balder  from  looking  on  the 
strucjo-les  of  the  summer  sun,  he  merely  took  back 
from  that  sun  the  thought  which  he  himself  had 
oriuinally  lent  to  it.  The  ultimate  exijlanation  of 
the  myth  must  lie  in  the  region  of  the  mind.  Balder 
himself  is  a  personification,  and  so  is  the  sun  in  the 
heavens ;  the  one  as  much  as  the  other  requires  to 
be  explained  on  mental  grounds.  If  so,  the  explan- 
ation ought  to  be  very  simple,  and  can  be  notliing 
else  than  what  has  here  been  indicated.  Balder  in 
the  field  of  history,  and  the  sun  in  the  field  of  the 
h(,avens,  are  alike  and  equally  the  embodiment  of  a 
great  thought — the  thought  that  the  life  of  man  pro- 
ceeds from  peace  to  conflict,  and  from  conflict  back 


The  Message  of  the  Teuton.  267 

to  peace.  But  if  it  be  so,  it  follows  beyond  all  con- 
troversy that  the  message  of  the  Teuton  is  the  mes- 
sage of  development.  To  him  distinctively  amongst 
the  votaries  of  the  religious  world  there  has  fallen 
the  task  of  exhibiting  the  progressive  nature  of  the 
divine  life.  The  votaries  of  other  faiths  have  been 
concerned  with  other  elements.  The  Brahman  has 
seen  the  God  above  the  world,  and  the  Greek  has 
seen  the  God  in  the  world  ;  to  the  Teuton  has  been 
assigned  the  part  of  describing  the  divine  life  above 
the  world  and  the  divine  life  in  the  world,  as  sep- 
arate stages  of  one  and  the  same  existence,  as  steps 
of  progressive  development  in  the  unfolding  of  the 
universal  plan. 

And  let  it  be  remembered  that  to  the  playing  of 
this  part  the  Teuton  has  been  true.  The  message 
of  the  primitive  race  has  been  the  message  of  the 
race  in  its  phase  of  highest  culture.  At  the  begin- 
ning of  this  century  there  appeared  in  Germany  a 
form  of  thought  which  has  revolutionised  all  previ- 
ous philosoj)hies,  and  exerted  an  influence  even  over 
unsympathetic  schools ;  I  allude,  of  course,  to  that 
system  called  Hegelianism.  It  is  supposed  to  be  a 
system  defying  tlie  understanding  of  ordinary  mor- 
tals. Yet,  when  looked  at  dispassionately,  and 
divested  of  abstruse  language,  it  will  be  found  to 
be  simply  a  refined  reproduction  by  the  Teuton 
mind  in  maturity  of  that  which  in  primitive  days 
it  conceived  in  germ.     Hegel  says  that  in  the  uni- 


268  Messages  of  the  Old  Belvjiuns. 

verse  as  a  whole,  and  in  every  part  of  the  universe, 
there  are  three  successive  movements.  The  first  is 
one  of  unimpeded  motion — of  motion  without  oppo- 
sition, and  therefore  without  recognition,  A  man 
running  at  full  speed  on  a  seemingly  boundless 
plain,  and  with  no  memory  of  having  ever  occupied 
any  other  attitude,  would  never  say  even  to  himself 
that  he  was  free.  The  idea  of  freedom  could  only 
Le  reached  by  an  interruption  to  tlie  seeming  bound- 
lessness, could  only  be  realised  in  the  meeting  with 
a  barred  gate.  Accordingly  the  barred  gate  appears, 
and  marks  the  second  stage  of  the  universal  life. 
The  unimpeded  movement  is  interrupted,  the  un- 
qualified affirmation  is  contradicted,  and  the  day  of 
spontaneous  growth  is  succeeded  by  the  day  of  con- 
ilict.  It  is  an  hour  of  apparent  decline,  but  of  real 
progress,  the  spirit  of  life  has  lost  its  first  riches, 
but  in  the  act  of  losing,  it  has  learned  for  the  first 
time  what  it  is  to  be  rich.  Then  comes  the  final 
stage,  in  which  the  contradiction  itself  is  reconciled, 
and  the  spirit  for  the  second  time  is  actually,  for 
the  first  time  consciously,  free.  The  barred  gate  is 
found  to  have,  itself,  an  opening;  it  yields  to  the 
pressure  of  the  arm,  and  tlie  struggling  soul  is 
again  unimpeded  on  its  way.  Yet  the  last  stage  is 
by  no  means  a  repetition  of  the  first.  It  is  freedom, 
but  it  is  freedom  won.  It  is  no  longer  the  mere 
rushing  over  a  plain  that  is  boundless;  it  is  the 
emancix<Uion  from  a  gate  that  is  barred.     It  is  not 


The  Message  of  the  Teuton,  269 

only  the  first  state  restored  ;  it  is  the  first  state 
restored  and  revealed.  Originally  it  was  unre- 
vealed;  it  was  too  near  to  the  consciousness  to  be 
itself  an  object  of  knowledge ;  it  was  unopposed, 
and  therefore  it  was  unfelt.  Tlie  barred  gate 
has  restrained  it,  and  therefore  manifested  it,  and 
in  passing  through  the  gate  the  life  has  for  the 
first  time  passed  into  the  consciousness  of  its  own 
possession. 

And  wliat  is  this  modern  Hegelianism  but  a  cul- 
tured reprint  of  the  primitive  Teutonic  view  ?  Is 
it  not  the  same  rhythm  that  is  the  object  of  search 
in  the  myths  of  the  ancient  Eddas  ?  Here  also  we 
see  the  three  successive  ages.  We  see  the  age  of 
spontaneous  power,  in  which  Woden  and  Thor  reign 
supreme,  the  period  when  there  is  peace  in  heaven 
because  there  is  as  yet  no  admixture  of  the  earth. 
We  see  the  age  when  the  spontaneous  power  is 
broken,  and  when,  in  the  arena  of  deadly  conflict, 
ofood  and  evil  stand  face  to  face.  At  last  we  behold 
the  battle  ended  and  the  combatants  swept  away. 
The  days  of  spontaneity  again  return,  but  they  are 
no  longer  the  spontaneity  of  ignorance.  Tliey  are 
the  days  in  which  the  power  of  action  has  become 
unconscious  of  itself  through  long- continued  con- 
sciousness, in  which  virtue  has  become  the  native 
atmosphere  of  the  life  by  the  persistent  habit  of 
living  within  it.  The  peace  of  tlie  last  stage  is  not 
the  peace  of  paradise  lost  but  of  paradise  regained. 


270  Messages  ofjjie  Old  Belirjions. 

It  is  no  longer  simply  a  state  into  which  the  soul  is 
horn ;  it  is  a  state  which  the  soul  has  chosen,  and 
which  by  an  act  of  will  it  has  marked  out  for  its  own. 
And  if  the  Teuton  mythology  lias  thus  its  signifi- 
cance in  the  field  of  philosophic  development,  it  is 
not  without  a  voice  also  in  the  field  of  scientific 
thought.  It  lias  been  the  office  of  the  Teuton  to 
trace  the  development  of  the  world  not  only  from 
within  but  from  without ;  he  has  had  his  Darwin  as 
well  as  his  Hegel.  And  in  the  sphere  of  Darwinism, 
as  in  the  sphere  of  Hegelianism,  the  moral  has  been 
the  same  —  peace  through  conflict,  unity  through 
contradiction.  Darwinism  has  sought  to  trace  the 
process  by  which  the  fittest  have  survived,  and  it 
has  found  that  process  to  have  been  one  of  struggle. 
Here  again  the  Teuton  mind  has  been  true  to  itself, 
true  to  its  primitive  myths  and  its  primitive  in- 
stincts. What  is  the  mythology  of  the  Eddas  but  a 
history  of  tlie  survival  of  the  fittest,  and  a  delinea- 
tion of  how  that  survival  has  been  effected  through 
struggle  ?  There  is,  indeed,  in  the  centre  of  this 
mythology  a  thought  which  has  a  deep  bearing  upon 
the  whole  question  of  scientific  survival.  It  empha- 
sises beyond  all  other  points  the  fact  that  the  thing 
whicli  in  tlic  long-run  is  most  fitted  to  survive  is,  on 
iliat  very  account,  the  thing  which  in  intermediate 
periods  is  least  adapted  to  live.  Ijalder  is  the  per- 
sonification of  all  goodness  and  of  all  beauty ;  he  is 
tlie  ideal  of  completed  excellence",  and  therefore  the 


The  Message  of  the  Teuton.  271 

goal  of  universal  being.  To  him,  accordingly,  as  a 
matter  of  course  belongs  the  final  gift  of  immortality, 
the  right  and  the  necessity  to  survive  at  the  end  of 
the  days.  But  for  that  very  reason  he  is  unable  to 
live  in  the  middle  of  the  days.  His  goodness  and 
his  beauty  fit  him  for  an  age  of  completed  excel- 
lence, but  not  for  an  age  of  struggling  excellence, 
not  for  a  time  when  the  average  mind  is  intent  only 
upon  the  things  of  the  outer  life.  There  is  an  epoch 
of  history  in  which  Balder  is  bound  to  die,  bound  by 
his  very  greatness  to  succumb  to  other  forces.  That 
which  makes  him  great  is  at  the  outset  that  which 
makes  him  solitary.  He  is  at  the  beginning  unlike 
surrounding  objects,  and  therefore  he  is  at  the  be- 
ginning alone.  Being  alone,  he  is  one  against  a 
thousand,  and  he  falls  beneath  the  weight  of  the 
thousand.  It  is  the  primitive  Adam  in  the  centre 
of  the  beasts  of  the  field — greater  than  the  serpent 
in  point  of  right,  but  inferior  in  point  of  fact.  It  is 
the  Grecian  Socrates  in  the  midst  of  the  Athenians 
— living  before  his  time,  and  therefore  compelled  to 
die  ere  his  work  is  done.  It  is  the  universal  Christ 
in  the  midst  of  the  men  of  Judah — proclaiming  a 
gospel  for  all  nations,  and  therefore  crucified  by  a 
race  which  has  recognised  a  gospel  only  for  one. 
Balder,  by  reason  of  his  excellence,  is  always  for  a 
time  delivered  unto  death. 

Now,  why  is  this  ?     How  does  it  happen  that  the 
thing  which  by  its  nature  is  fitted  to  be  the  ultimate 


272  Messages  of  the  Old  Belirjions. 

survivor,  and  wliicli  as  a  matter  of  fact  proves  the 
ultimate  survivor,  is  yet  compelled  at  the  outset  to 
pass  througli  a  stage  of  death,  to  succumb  to  lesser 
things?  Science  does  not  escape  the  problem  any 
more  than  the  Teuton  mythology.  It  is  a  truth 
which  must  be  recognised  as  much  by  the  Dar- 
winian as  by  the  primitive  man.  AVe  all  see  as  a 
matter  of  daily  experience  that  the  last  are  made 
first  and  the  first  last ;  that  the  men  and  systems 
which  are  despised  and  rejected  by  one  age  are  pre- 
cisely the  men  and  systems  which  are  lauded  and 
magnified  by  anotlier.  The  question  is,  AVhy  ?  Does 
it  not  involve  a  principle  above  and  beyond  mere 
evolution,  a  principle  which  evolution  in  itself  is  not 
adequate  to  explain  ?  Evolution  can  account  for  the 
survival  of  the  fittest,  but  it  does  not  tell  me  why 
that  which  is  killed  to-day  should  have  its  resurrec- 
tion to-morrow.  Balder  is  always  overcome  at  the 
beginning,  because  he  is  physically  less  strong  than 
his  opponents  ;  but  he  is  not  a  bit  physically  stronger 
at  the  end  than  he  was  at  the  beginning,  nor  are 
his  opponents  one  whit  more  physically  weak.  Wliy, 
then,  is  the  result  so  different  ?  It  is  because  the 
world  has  changed  its  ideal  of  what  constitutes 
beauty.  It  is  because  the  physically  strong  is  no 
longer  reckoned  the  highest  type  of  power,  and  the 
restraint  of  passion  no  longer  deemed  the  natural 
mark  of  weakness.  Here,  it  seems  to  me,  there 
enters  an  element  beyond  the  merely  mechanical — 


The  Message  of  the  Teuton.  273 

an  element  with  which  evolution  may  indeed  00- 
operate,  but  which  of  itself  it  cannot  comprehend. 
There  is  not  even  any  necessity  that  an  evolution 
should  be  progressive  at  all.  Huxley  says  it  is 
equally  consistent  either  with  going  on,  going  back, 
or  standing  still.^  If  it  has  consistently  gone  on 
even  amidst  its  moments  of  regress,  if  it  has  taken 
up  Balder  after  he  has  been  slain,  and  has  laid  in 
the  dust  his  once  omnipotent  foes,  it  can  only  be 
because  there  is  in  the  universe  a  principle  of  se- 
lection beyond  the  natural,  and  a  law  of  growth 
superior  to  the  force  of  mechanism.  I  think,  there- 
fore, that  the  primitive  Teuton  has  judged  well  in 
placing  the  secret  of  development  not  in  the  earth 
but  in  the  heavens.  It  is  no  accident  in  his  system 
that  tlie  new  world  rises  from  the  positive  annihila- 
tion of  the  old.  It  is  from  the  blank  space  of  an 
extinguished  firmament  and  an  utterly  obliterated 
earth  that  there  is  made  to  come  forth  a  land 
wherein  dwelleth  righteousness.  Nowhere  has  the 
myth  more  thoroughly  transcended  its  mythicism 
than  in  such  a  thought  as  that.  It  has  parted  with 
the  material  image  in  search  of  something  that  is 
not  material.  It  has  abandoned  the  metaphors  of 
human  analogy  in  pursuit  of  an  agency  whose  mode 
of  working  is  beyond  all  description  of  language,  and 
whose  process  of  action  is  incalculable  by  human 

^  See    article   "Evolution,"    * Encyclopscdia    Britannica,'    ninth 
edition. 


274  Messages  of  the  Old  Relifjions, 

intelligence.  It  has  here  again  been  true  to  itself, 
consistent  with  that  instinct  which  always  and 
everywhere  has  followed  the  Teuton  race — an  in- 
stinct which  even  in  physical  researches  has  never 
paused  at  the  gates  of  the  physical,  and  which  at 
the  back  of  the  scientific  universe  has  found  a  force 
that  is  inscrutable  and  unknowable. 


The  Message  of  Egypt  275 


CHAPTER    XIIL 

THE    MESSAGE    OF    EGYPT. 

It  is  a  long  cry  from  the  Teuton  to  the  Egyptian. 
It  is  the  passage  from  a  living  to  a  dead  sea.  The 
Teuton  is  very  much  alive ;  the  Egyptian  has  passed 
away.  The  one  is  an  active  force,  present  and 
potent;  the  other  is  a  historical  memory,  vener- 
able and  outgrown.  They  belong,  besides,  to  two 
different  lines  of  thought.  The  Teuton  is  the  last 
of  the  Aryans;  the  Egyptian  is  the  first  of  the 
Semitics.  The  distinction  is  by  no  means  a  merely 
geographical  one;  it  indicates  a  change  of  stand- 
point. The  Semitic  begins  where  the  Aryan  ends. 
The  Aryan  starts  from  nature,  from  life,  from 
history,  and  thence  rises  to  the  conception  of  a 
Power  beyond  them  all;  the  Semitic  starts  w^ith 
the  recognition  of  a  transcendent  Power,  and  thence 
descends  to  the  study  of  nature,  life,  and  history. 
The  former  begins  with  the  seen  and  temporal,  and 
ends  with  the  unseen  and  eternal ;  the  latter  begins 
with  the   unseen    and   eternal,  and   ends   with   the 


276  Messages  of  the  Old  Religions. 

seen  and  temporal.  The  result  is  in  each  case  the 
same,  l)ut  the  method  is  different;  the  one  ap- 
proaches God  through  the  world,  the  other  finds 
the  world  through  God. 

In  the  Aryan  religions  we  saw  the  human  mind 
climbing  from  the  temporal  into  the  eternal.  India 
grappled  with  the  problem  of  life;  Persia  strove 
with  the  fact  of  sin ;  Greece  wrestled  with  the 
aspect  of  things  as  they  are ;  Eome  sought  to  estab- 
lish a  unity  on  earth.  The  Teuton  aspired  higher 
still,  and  aimed  to  find  the  unity  both  of  earth  and 
heaven.  And  we  saw  how,  in  the  closing  scene  of 
all,  the  Teuton  expressed  his  consciousness  that 
there  was  something  more  than  all  these  material 
things  put  together,  how,  even  after  both  tlie 
heavens  and  the  earth  had  passed  away,  he  belield 
an  unlvuown  and  inscrutable  Force  fashionino:  a 
grander  and  a  more  enduring  universe.  Now,  the 
Teuton's  ending  was  the  Egyptian's  beginning. 
What  the  Norseman  proclaimed  as  a  last  result 
was  from  the  outset  the  faith  of  the  dweller  on 
the  Xile.  To  him  the  root  of  all  religion  was  the 
unknowableness  of  God.  He  started  from  the 
conception  that  there  is-  a  Power  man  cannot 
comprehend  —  a  Power  whose  ultimate  essence  is 
beyond  human  scrutiny.  His  message  to  the  world 
was  primarily  the  announcement  of  mystery,  the 
proclamation  that  there  were  more  things  in  hea\'en 
and  earth  than  men  had  yet  dreamed  of.     This  is 


The  Message  of  Egypt.  'Ill 

distinctively  his  message.  He  has  other  aspects  for 
other  lines  of  thought  —  for  the  historian,  for  the 
antiquarian,  for  the  student  of  the  Old  Testament. 
But  for  the  religious  life  his  significance  lies  in 
this,  that  he  has  striven  to  worship  a  God  who, 
in  the  completeness  of  His  being,  has  no  distinct, 
definite,  or  exhaustive  image,  who  cannot  in  Him- 
self be  represented  to  the  sense,  who  in  every  object 
and  in  every  sphere  defies  computation  and  eludes 
scrutiny.  ^ 

And  this  is  all  tlie  more  noteworthy  from  the 
fact  that,  on  a  superficial  view,  it  appears  to  be  the 
reverse  of  the  truth.  So  far  back  as  the  besrinninf^ 
of  the  second  Christian  century,  the  Egyptian  creed 
was  charged  with  inconsistency  by  Clement  of 
Alexandria. 2  He  makes  merry  over  searching  for 
the  veiled  god,  and  finding  him  at  last  in  such 
common  forms  as  the  cat  or  the  crocodile.  But 
Clement  is  wrong.  The  cat  and  the  crocodile,  and 
all  other  forms  whatsoever,  are,  in  the  eyes  of  the 
Egyptian,  themselves  only  veils — coverings  of  some- 
thing which  is  greater  than  they.  There  are  two 
ways  in  which  a  man  may  express  his  sense  that 
God  is  incapable  of  being  imaged ;  he  may  symbolise 
Him  nowhere,  or  he  may  symbolise  Him  everywhere. 

^  The   unity  of  this  primal  force  in   the   Egj'ptian  worship  is 
strongly  asserted  by  M.   Emmanuel   de  Kouge,   "  Conference  sur 
la  religion  des  anciens  Egyptiens,"  in  the   'Annales  de  la  Pliilo- 
soyjliie  Chretieune,'  tome  xx.  p.  327. 
.,'  iii.  c.  2. 


278  Messages  of  the  Old  Relifjions, 

The  latter  is  as  effectual  as  the  former,  and  it  is  the 
method  of  the  Egyptian.  He  wanted  to  sliow  that 
no  single  image  could  represent  God,  and  so  he 
made  all  thioGjs  ima^^e  Him.  He  saw  Him  in  the 
heavens  and  in  the  earth,  in  the  land  and  in  the 
water,  in  the  male  and  in  the  female,  in  the  animal 
and  in  the  man.  He  associated  with  the  rites 
of  religion  nearly  every  living  thing  and  wellnigh 
every  liuman  pursuit.-^  He  made  no  difference 
between  the  high  and  the  low.  He  consecrated  the 
palace  of  the  Pharaohs,  but  he  consecrated  equally 
their  tombs.  He  adored  the  sun  in  its  course,  but 
he  adored  also  the  worm  in  its  earthward  movement. 
What  annihilated  to  his  mind  the  distance  between 
great  and  small  was  the  idea  of  religion,  the  sense 
that  always  and  everywhere  the  inscrutable  Power 
w^as  abidincj.  It  was  this  which  made  one  thine*'  not 
grander  than  another  thing.  A  common  majesty 
belonged  to  all — the  majesty  encircling  the  fact 
tliat  every  form  had  in  it  a  life  beyond  its  own, 
and  that  each  was  the  receptacle  of  an  unfathomed 
and  unfathomable  mystery. 

And,  in  point  of  fact,  I  think  it  will  appear 
that,  while  the  Egyptian  reverences  all  creation, 
he  attaches  the  greatest  reverence  to  those  aspects 

^  This  universality  of  religious  association  in  Egypt  is  pointed 
out  by  Renouf,  'Hibbert  Lectures  (1879)  on  the  Origin  and 
Growth  of  Religion,  as  illustrated  by  the  Religion  of  Ancient 
Egypt,'  p.  26. 


The  Message  of  Egypt,  279 

of  creation  which  carry  with  them  the  idea  of  con- 
cealment. He  worships  the  sun  under  the  name  of 
Osiris.  Very  significantly,  however,  it  is  the  setting 
and  not  the  rising  that  rivets  his  eye.  It  is  from 
the  spectacle  of  the  death  of  Osiris  that  he  draws 
his  highest  inspiration.  In  the  desolation  of  the 
earth  under  the  pall  of  night,  he  sees  the  grief  of 
Isis  for  her  murdered  husband,  and  pays  his  tribute 
of  adoration  to  a  hidden  glory.  In  the  animal 
world,  again,  what  is  that  which  has  evoked  his 
worship  ?  It  is  the  presence  of  a  mystery.  He 
beholds  in  it  something  which  he  cannot  understand. 
Instinct  is  a  hidden  life  to  the  man  of  reason.  Its 
modes  of  action  are  unintelligible  to  calculation. 
Man  must  say  of  the  animal  as  he  says  of  the 
divine,  "  I  am  an  agnostic ;  I  cannot  comprehend 
it."  It  is  this  which  has  made  the  Egyptian 
reverence  the  beast  of  the  field — a  vision  of  some- 
thing which  is  inscrutable.  I  know  as  little  of  that 
which  is  beneath  me  as  of  that  which  is  above  me ; 
both  are  to  me  alike  mysterious.  Is  it  surprising 
that  I  should  revere  the  one  as  much  as  the  other, 
and  for  precisely  the  same  reason — because  both 
belong  to  an  intelligence  that  transcends  my  own  ? 
Nor  will  this  Egyptian  tendency  be  less  conspicu- 
ously evident,  if  we  turn  to  that  product  of  the 
national  art  whose  very  name  has  become  synony- 
mous with  mystery — the  Sphinx.  It  is  a  hieroglyphic 
figure  whose  lower  part  is  the  form  of  a  lion,  whose 


280  Mcssrifjcs  of  the  Old  pLcligioiis. 

higher  is  the  shape  of  some  other  creature — some- 
times of  an  animal,  frequently  of  a  man,  occasion- 
ally, though  rarely,  of  a  woman. ^  What  is  the  mean- 
ing of  this  riddle  ?  Various  conjectures  have  heen 
formed,  but  it  seems  to  me  that  it  lies  on  tlie  sur- 
face. Is  it  not  intended  to  be  conveyed  that  there  is 
an  unseen  bond  uniting  the  different  lives  of  crea- 
tion ?  We  are  familiar  in  modern  times  with  what 
is  called  the  transmutation  of  species.  The  ancient 
Egyptian  was  not,  nor  did  he  think  of  it.  Yet  to 
his  reflective  mind — a  mind  that  had  already  enjoyed 
a  long  term  of  civilisation — it  appeared  that  there 
was  an  invisible  something  which  joined  together 
the  different  parts  of  creation-— a  subtle  and  im- 
palpable element  which  constituted  the  unity  of 
life  in  reptile,  bird,  beast,  and  man.  jSTay,  I  would 
add,  "  in  the  gods  also."  I  believe  the  idea  of  the 
Sphinx  to  be  at  the  root  of  Egyptian  theology  as  well 
as  of  Egyptian  science.  The  gods  of  Egypt  are  in- 
numerable by  name;  but  are  they  innumerable  in 
fact  ?  On  the  contrary,  every  new  research  has  tended 
more  and  more  to  confirm  the  impression  tliat  in  the 
view  of  llie  worshipper  the  many  are  but  various 
aspects  of  the  one.  Osiris,  Isis,  Horus,  Ea,  Set, 
Anubis,  are  but  the  special  forms  of  one  Presence 
which  constitutes  the  boundary  of  each,  and  veils 
the  secret  of  its  being.  Tlie  universe  is  itself  a 
divine  figure,  enclosing  many  shapes,  and  embodying 

^  See  Dean  Stanley,  'Sinai  and  Palestine,'  p.  Ivii. 


Tlic  Message  of  Egypt.  281 

many  degrees  of  intelligence.  Each  is  regarded  with 
reverence,  but  only  on  the  ground  that  each  is  other 
than  itself.  It  is  worshipped  not  for  what  it  reveals, 
but  for  what  it  keeps  hid.  It  is  worshipped  because 
it  conceals  from  the  eye  and  ear  of  the  beholder  a 
life  more  potent  than  its  own — a  life  without  which 
its  own  could  not  live,  and  which  yet  it  is  powerless 
to  comprehend. 

If  I  were  asked  to  define  the  religion  of  Egypt  in 
a  single  sentence,  I  should  say,  it  is  the  faith  which 
apologises  for  what  is  called  an  idolatrous  worship. 
It  denies  that  idolatry  is  what  it  is  said  to  be.  It  is 
said  to  be  image-worship.  To  the  Egyptian  it  is  the 
worship  of  everything  hut  the  image.  It  is  the  rever- 
ence of  the  thing  wdiich  is  hidden,  covered,  unrepre- 
sented. The  image  is  not  a  revealer  but  a  veil.  It 
provokes  curiosity ;  it  tells  the  bystander  that  there 
is  something  underneath.  And  in  this  the  Egyptian 
is  true  not  only  to  what  is  technically  called  idolatry, 
but  to  all  forms  of  adoration,  all  forms  of  admiration, 
all  forms  of  love.  It  may  be  said  as  a  matter  of 
experience,  and  without  fear  of  contradiction,  that 
our  devotion  to  any  object  is  founded  on  more  than 
actually  appears.  What  do  we  mean  by  saying  that 
such  an  object  is  our  ideal  ?  We  mean  that  it  is 
more  than  meets  the  eye,  more  than  meets  the  ear, 
more  than  meets  the  sense,  more  than  is  ever  mani- 
fested anywhere — that  we  have  attached  to  it  a  life 
other  than  its  own. 


282  Messages  of  tlic  Old  Beligions. 

I  may  illustrate  tins  from  three  different  sides  of 
man's  nature — the  retrospective,  the  prospective,  and 
the  introspective.  In  order  to  give  all  possible  force 
to  the  illustration,  I  shall  take  an  example  of  each 
of  these  influences  from  a  physical  rather  than  from 
a  moral  ideal.  And  first :  Many  a  landscape  is  in- 
debted for  half  its  charm  to  memory ;  perhaps  every 
landscape  is  indebted  to  memory  for  some  of  its 
charm.  Mr  Herbert  Spencer  says  that  all  cognition 
is  ?'gcognition.  If  it  be  so,  it  follows  that  every  per- 
ception of  beauty  is,  like  the  vision  of  the  Sphinx,  a 
sight  of  two  lives  in  one.  It  is  a  perception  in  which 
there  is  a  transmutation  of  to-day  into  yesterday,  in 
which  the  present  only  lives  by  going  back  into  the 
past,  and  the  day  which  has  dawned  subsists  by  the 
day  that  is  dead.  You  stand  in  the  Bay  of  Naples 
and  pronounce  it  beautiful.  But  is  the  Bay  of  Naples 
at  this  moment  the  only  object  in  your  mind's  eye  ? 
Have  you  not  seen  in  it  a  real  or  fancied  resemblance 
to  Loch  Lomond  ?  If  you  have,  and  if  you  are  a 
native  of  Britain,  you  are  not  an  idolater  of  the  Bay 
of  Naples.  It  is  not  really  or  essentially  a  foreign 
scene  that  you  are  beholding ;  the  figure  of  the 
foreign  has  passed  into  the  figure  of  home.  There 
are  more  things  than  men  dream  of  which  are  bear- 
ing a  vicarious  merit,  which  owe  their  attractiveness 
to  something  outside  of  themselves.  The  actual 
image  is  little  more  than  a  veil  which  conceals  from 
the  view  the  real  object  of  admiration,  and  claims 


The  Message  of  Egypt.     .  283 

for  the  present  hour  a  tribute  which  is  meant  for 
the  past. 

I  shall  take  the  second  illustration  not  from  mem- 
ory hut  from  hope.  How  many  odes  have  been  writ- 
ten to  the  spring  ?  It  is  associated  with  all  bright 
things.  It  is  the  symbol  of  joy,  the  emblem  of  good 
fortune,  the  synonym  for  the  close  of  dark  days. 
And  yet,  let  us  reflect  how  much  of  this  belongs  not 
to  the  spring  at  all.  How  much  of  it  is  the  voice  of 
full-blown  summer.  We  have  given  the  ripeness  to 
the  germ  ;  we  have  assigned  to  the  acorn  what  only 
pertains  to  the  oak.  Measured  by  its  actual  self, 
the  spring  effects  little.  It  retains  much  of  the  sur- 
vival of  old  culture — of  the  past  winter's  cold.  It 
gives  only  a  promise  and  a  very  small  earnest.  If 
the  world  were  to  be  arrested  in  its  stage  of  spring 
and  forced  to  stay  there,  the  lovers  of  the  season 
would  soon  desert  her.  What  they  love  about  her 
is  an  imputed  righteousness.  She  wears  an  antici- 
pated glory — the  glory  of  the  summer.  She  has  been 
transmuted  in  imagination  into  that  wdiich  is  still  in 
advance  of  her  ;  she  is  only  what  she  is  by  being 
another.  It  is  the  story  of  the  Sphinx  repeated.  The 
present  and  the  future  lie  on  one  stem,  and  neither 
can  live  apart  from  the  other;  neither  can  say  to 
the  other,  "  I  have  no  need  of  thee."  It  is  not  the 
image  which  is  w^orshipped,  but  its  possibility  of,  one 
day,  imaging  greater  things. 

The  third  of  the  influences  which  exemplify  the 


284  Messages  of  tlie  Old  Religions. 

Egyptian  tendency  is  what  I  have  called  introspec- 
tive. We  may  take  an  instance  from  one  of  the  most 
common  acts  of  perception — looking  on  an  expanse 
of  sea.  Let  us  say  that  it  is  a  very  limited  expanse. 
Let  it  l)e  the  place  where  the  waters  are  only  begin- 
ning to  widen,  and  where  the  land  is  yet  visible  on 
every  side.  Even  in  these  narrow  circumstances  the 
impression  produced  upon  the  sense  will  be  one  of 
boundlessness.  We  shall  have  a  feeling  of  unim- 
peded freedom,  a  sense  of  unqualified  enlargement, 
an  experience  of  complete  emancipation  from  earthly 
restraints  and  limits.  Now,  how  are  we  to  explain 
this  phenomenon  ?  We  are  venerating  an  arm  of 
the  sea  for  the  possession  of  a  quality  which  does 
not  even  belong  to  all  the  united  oceans  of  the  world. 
There  is  not  a  boundless  sea  on  the  globe,  nor  does 
the  spectator  for  a  moment  believe  that  there  is. 
What,  then,  does  he  behold  ?  Not  the  image,  but 
something  beneath  the  image — the  aspirations  of  his 
own  soul.  He  looks  into  tlie  transparent  waters  to 
contemplate  the  trembling  of  the  waves,  and  he  sees 
there  another  figure  which  he  cannot  distinguish 
from  the  \yaters,  which  seems  to  have  transformed 
the  waters  into  its  own  likeness ;  it  is  the  spirit  of 
man.  The  riddle  of  the  Sphinx  has  its  parallel  in 
the  things  of  the  common  day;  it  is  still  equally 
present  and  still  equally  unsolved. 

These  illustrations  may  help  us,  I  think,  to  under- 
stand the  nature  of  Egyptian  worship.     The  object 


The  Message  of  Egypt.  285 

of  Egyptian  reverence  seems  to  me  to  be  in  every 
case  that  mysterious  boundary-line  which  at  once 
divides  and  unites  the  creatures  of  the  world.  It  is 
the  place  where  one  being  separates  from  another 
being,  to  be  blended  with  him  again  in  some  un- 
accountable way.  I  do  not  know  whether  it  has 
been  put  in  this  form  before,  but  it  will  be  found, 
I  think,  to  be  in  harmony  with  all  modern  research 
and  consistent  with  the  facts  already  known.  The 
message  of  Egypt  is,  in  short,  the  message  of  the 
Sphinx  —  the  relation  between  the  many  and  the 
one.  Whatever  tends  to  exhibit  this  relation,  either 
on  the  side  of  separation  or  on  the  side  of  union,  is 
hailed  by  the  ancient  Egyptian,  and  consecrated  as 
an  object  of  adoration.  It  is  adored  for  its  mys- 
teriousness,  for  its  impalpableness,  for  its  subtle 
power  of  eluding  explanation  and  baffling  scrutiny. 
And  the  influence  of  this  tendency  will  be  found  to 
have  been  most  potent,  to  have  made  Egypt  dis- 
tinctively what  she  is.  I  might  show  this  in  many 
directions,  but  I  confine  myself  to  one,  that  whicli 
is  opened  up  by  her  oldest  and  most  important 
document — the  Book  of  the  Dead.'^  It  is  significant 
that  this  should  be  her  most  important  document, 
significant  that  even  in  the  days  of  her  infancy  her 
eyes  should   have   first  rested  with   fascination  on 

^  Detailed  information  regarding  this  work  will  be  found  in 
Bunsen's  '  Egypt's  Place  in  Universal  History.'  See  also  Renouf, 
p.  172,  '  Hibbert  Lecture.' 


286  Messages  of  the  Old  Religions. 

tliat  awful  presence  of  death  from  which  the  eyes 
of  others  are  habitually  repelled.  A  fact  so  strange 
and  so  unique  must  have  some  connection  with  the 
religious  system  which  contains  it,  and  therefore  it 
demands  a  special  consideration. 

From  the  very  dawn  of  her  existence  Egypt  has 
consecrated  the  idea  of  death.  Her  position  in  so 
doing  has  been,  so  far  as  I  know,  abnormal.  In 
Christianity  alone  do  we  find  anything  which  ap- 
proaches to  similarity.  China  never  consecrated 
death;  it  had  no  place  and  no  provision  within 
her  system.  India  did  not  consecrate  death ;  she 
looked  upon  both  life  and  death  as  illusions,  and 
so  she  spurned  them  both.  Persia  did  not  conse- 
crate death ;  she  believed  in  the  immortality  of  the 
spirit,  and  for  that  very  reason  she  resisted  the 
trappings  of  the  grave.  The  touch  of  a  dead  body 
was,  to  her,  defiling,  and  therefore  she  hastened  to 
consume  the  unconscious  clay.  And,  although  stand- 
ing at  opposite  angles  from  one  another,  and  acting 
from  opposite  motives,  neither  Judea  nor  Greece 
consecrated  death.  Judea  saw  in  it  the  penalty  for 
a  violated  law ;  Greece  bewailed  in  it  the  interrup- 
tion of  a  self-satisfied  life ;  both  equally  averted  their 
eyes  from  it.  Amid  great  dissonance  of  opinion  on 
other  points,  amid  evidences  of  mental  diversity  and 
indications  of  contrary  ideals,  there  remains  on  this 
one  head  a  voice  of  general  unanimity ;  all  alike 
recoil  from  the  symbols  of  the  grave. 


The  Message  of  Egypt.  287 

All  but  one.  In  the  face  of  the  old  world,  Egypt 
stands  out  as  a  remarkable  exception.  Here  we 
have  not  only  an  absence  of  the  usual  recoil  from 
death,  but  we  have  substituted  for  it  a  positive  at- 
traction towards  the  elsewhere  loathed  object.  If 
she  were  a  pessimistic  nation,  we  might  to  some 
extent  understand  it ;  but,  as  Eenouf  points  out,  she 
was  not.  She  had  in  her  much  of  the  Greek's  love 
of  pleasure,  and  much  of  his  temptation  to  seize  the 
present  hour.  Yet,  unlike  the  Greek,  the  Egyptian 
haunted  the  sepulchre.  Most  nations  have  been 
kept  alive  by  preserving  their  treasures  from  the 
tomb;  it  would  hardly  be  too  much  to  say  tliat 
Egypt  has  been  kept  alive  by  putting  her  treasures 
in  the  tomb.  That  by  which  her  greatness  to-day 
is  known  is  her  Pyramids  and  her  books,  and  both 
are  memorials  of  death.  Her  Pyramids  are  her 
testimony  to  the  fact  that  death  has  not  robbed 
her  kings  of  their  majesty.  Her  books  are  more. 
They  are  the  aspirations  of  the  living  after  com- 
munion with  the  dead.  The  Egyptian  is  not  afraid 
to  plant  these  aspirations  in  the  coffin.  "When  we 
of  modern  times  write  a  panegyric  on  the  departed, 
we  do  so  in  order  to  give  it  publicity.  "We  design 
that  it  shall  find  its  way  to  the  eyes  of  men.  But 
when  an  Egyptian  wrote  a  panegyric  on  one  de- 
parted, he  did  so  in  order  that  he  might  put  it  in 
the  grave ;  he  laid  it  where  he  had  laid  his  heart 
— in  the  coffin  with  Csesar.     The  reason  was  that  to 


Messages  of  the  Old  Religions. 

his  mind  the  symbols  of  death  did  not  suggest  as- 
sociations contrary  to  life  and  immortality.  They 
did  not  even  suggest  what  they  did  to  Jews  and 
early  Christians — the  sleep  of  the  soul.  To  the 
Egyptian  death  was  not  a  sleep ;  it  would  not  be 
too  much  to  say  that  it  was  a  waking.  In  the  view 
of  this  early  faith  the  blessed  dead,  so  far  from 
having  a  diminished  being,  have  entered  into  a 
larger  power.  They  have  entered  into  a  life  of 
three  progressive  stages.  In  the  first  they  have  to 
stand  before  the  judgment-seat.  In  the  second  they 
reach  the  power  of  transformation — become  able  at 
will  to  take  the  shape  of  everything  in  the  universe.^ 
In  the  third  they  take  the  likeness  of  the  Supreme 
God  Himself,  and  become  united  to  the  source  of  all 
being.  Not  in  spite  of  death,  but  by  reason  of 
death,  does  the  Egyptian  cherish  this  hope.  Others 
have  cherished  that  hope  as  well  as  he,  but  they 
have  entertained  it  in  defiance  of  the  king  of  terrors. 
Egypt  has  entertained  it  through  a  mystic  rever- 
ence for  that  king  and  his  kingdom,  and  has  found 
her  portal  to  immortality  in  the  shadows  of  the 
grave. 

The  question  is,  Why  ?  Wliat  is  that  which  to  the 
Egyptian  lias  robbed  death  of  its  terror  ?  As  1  have 
said,  it  is  not  a  pessimistic  view  of  life ;  the  Egyptian 
loves  the  world  and  the  things  of  the  world.  AVhy, 
then,  is  he  so  attracted  towards  that  which  most 

^  Reuouf,  ibid.,  p.  181. 


Th  c  Message  of  Efjijpt.  289 

worldly  people  are  desirous  to  forget  ?  It  is  by  reason 
nob  of  his  life  but  of  his  doctrine.  He  reveres  beyond 
all  things  the  boundary-line,  and  death  is  the  great 
boundary -line.  The  boundary-line  is  to  him  that 
which  leads  from  one  stacje  of  bein<]j  into  another 
stage  of  being — that  which  explains  the  riddle  of  the 
Sphinx.  So  completely  has  the  Egyptian  mind  been 
moulded  by  the  Sphinx  problem,  that,  as  we  have 
seen,  it  regards  the  glory  of  the  higher  heaven  as 
consisting  in  the  soul's  power  to  transform  itself. 
Death  is  looked  upon  as  a  possible  source  of  trans- 
formation. In  the  mind  of  a  primitive  race  there 
is  hardly  a  step  from  possibility  to  certainty.  The 
infant  intelligence  proverbially  leaps  to  conclusions, 
and  hope  passes  at  a  bound  into  conviction.  So 
was  it  with  the  Egyptian.  Death  was  a  boundary- 
line  ;  being  a  boundary-line,  it  was  a  mystery  ;  being 
a  mystery,  it  was  full  of  all  possibilities  ;  being  full 
of  possibilities,  it  was  to  the  world's  youth  radiant 
with  certainties.  Therefore  he  invested  it  with  a 
romantic  interest,  that  interest  with  which  the  child 
regards  not  only  the  entrance  upon  a  journey  but 
any  peculiar  vehicle  through  which  the  journey  is  to 
be  accomplished.  The  locomotive  and  the  steamboat 
may  be  new  to  the  child,  and  they  are  accompanied 
by  elements  which  are  calculated  to  excite  its  fear. 
Yet  both  of  these  facts  enhance  its  attractiveness  to 
the  juvenile  mind,  and  the  fear  itself  is  transmuted 
into  a  joy  —  that  joy  of  indefinite  possibility  which, 

T 


f^DO  Messages  of  tltc  Old  Bdifjions. 

{(like  to  child  and  man,  is  ever  wrapt  up  in  a  sense 
of  unfathomable  mystery. 

And  now  let  us  ask,  Is  this  a  permanent  message  ? 
Has  it  contributed  anything  to  the  spirit  of  aljsolute 
religion  ?  The  ancient  Egyptian  is  in  a  different 
position  from  the  ancient  Indian,  the  ancient  China- 
man, the  ancient  Jew,  the  ancient  Greek,  or  even 
the  ancient  Teuton.  These  are  the  ancestors  of  races 
yet  alive.  But  the  Egyptian  is  dead.  He  is  as 
obsolete  as  his  Pyramids ;  the  place  that  knew 
him  knows  him  no  more.  Nor  can  it  be  said 
that  his  influence  has  been  great  in  moulding  the 
faith  of  other  nations.  Renouf  will  not  admit  that 
he  has  influenced  either  the  Greek  or  the  Jew,^  and, 
if  he  has  not  affected  these,  he  has  touched  no  one. 
But,  conceding  all  this,  there  is  a  question  which 
remains.  Does  any  part  of  the  faith  of  Egypt  belong 
to  the  Church  universal  ?  She  may  be  dead  as  a 
nation,  she  may  be  inoperative  as  a  historic  power, 
and  yet  her  experience  may  be  the  experience  of 
all  the  world.  And  so  it  is.  This  message,  dis- 
tinctive of  the  creed  of  Egypt,  is  universal  to  the 
thought  of  mankind.  There  are  two  things  which 
are  declared  in  the  religious  message  of  Egypt — 
that  the  beginning  of  all  faith  is  mystery,  and 
that  the  beginning  of  all  mystery  is  the  boundary- 
line.  In  neither  of  these  points  has  Egypt  become 
superannuated. 

^  Kenouf,  iljid.,  p.  213. 


The  Mcssarjc  of  E'jyiit.  2 9 1 

And  first.  The  Egyptian  is  right  in  hokling  tliat 
faith  begins  with  mystery.  It  would  perhaps  be 
more  correct  to  say  that  the  sense  of  mystery  is  the 
essence  of  faith.  One  would  be  apt  at  first  sight  to 
suppose  that  faith  would  have  its' origin  in  revelation 
— in  the  seeing  of  all  things  clear.  In  truth  it  is 
not  so.  Faith  demands  beyond  everything  a  hazy 
atmosphere.  It  cannot  sing  in  the  full  light;  it 
must  at  most  have  no  more  than  the  dawn.  The 
root  of  all  worship  is  wonder,  and  wonder  comes 
from  a  sense  of  baffled  reason.  It  originates  in  the 
conviction  tliat  we  have  come  to  a  door  for  which 
we  cannot  find  the  key,  and  whose  other  side  is 
incomprehensible.  It  is  the  concealed  spots  of 
nature  that  we  worship;  it  is  the  veil  and  not  the 
revelation  that  we  reverence.  Nor  let  it  be  said 
that  such  a  view  makes  religion  a  thing  of  child- 
hood. As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  sense  of  mystery  is 
not  deepest  in  the  child ;  it  grows  with  our  growth 
and  expands  with  our  reason.  Mr  Herbert  Spencer 
does  not  scruple  to  say  that  its  highest  development 
is  the  age  of  science.  He  tells  us  that  the  scheme 
of  evolution  propounded  by  himself,  which  has 
certainly  been  accepted  as  tlie  scheme  of  modern 
science,  is  fitted  to  awaken  far  deeper  wonder  than 
the  popular  theories  of  the  olden  time.  In  this 
all  will  agree  with  him,  whatever  they  may  think 
of  his  theory  itself ;  and  the  concession  on  his  part 
is  remarkable.      It   amounts   to   a   statement  that 


292  Messa/jes  of  the  Old  Religions. 

wonder  increases  in  proportion  to  the  degree  of 
intelligence,  and  that  the  measure  of  human  know- 
ledge is  the  measure  of  man's  sense  of  mystery. 

The  first  position,  therefore,  of  Egypt  is  uncon- 
troverted  even  in  the  most  modern  times.  Agnos- 
ticism is  a  more  religious  belief  than  Atheism,  and 
why  ?  Because  it  admits  that  there  is  something 
about  the  universe  which  compels  it  to  say,  "  I  do 
not  know."  In  this  it  is  at  one  with  all  religion  ;  it 
finds  at  the  core  of  things  a  background  of  mystery. 
The  psalmist  of  Israel  asks  that  his  eyes  may  be  open 
to  behold  "  wonderful  things  out  of  the  law."  In  old 
days  men  only  conceived  wonder  in  the  violation  of 
law,  or,  in  other  'words,  in  the  spirit  of  lawlessness. 
But  the  psalmist's  prayer  has  been  answered,  and 
the  commonplace  has  been  glorified.  If  the  belief 
in  miracle  has  faded,  it  is  not  because  the  sense  of 
wonder  has  passed  away;  it  is  rather  because  wonder 
has  been  found  where  miracle  is  not,  because  order 
has  been  discovered  to  yield  that  mystery  which  was 
once  thought  to  belong  to  disorder  alone.  Thus,  at 
the  beginning  and  at  the  end  of  the  process,  we  have 
perfect  unity  —  the  changeless  amid  the  mutable. 
Between  ancient  Egypt  and  modern  England  there  is 
externally  and  intellectually  a  wide  gulf ;  there  is  all 
the  difference  of  the  meridian  and  the  dawn.  Yet 
as  there  is  something  in  the  dawn  which  exists  in 
the  meridian,  so  there  is  something  in  ancient  Egypt 
which    exists   in    modern   England.      The   spirit   of 


The  Message  of  Egypt.  293 

mystery  has  persisted  through  all  changes.  Amid 
ail  opposite  culture,  amid  an  enlarged  universe,  amid 
a  new  heaven  and  a  new  earth,  there  has  remained 
in  the  sphere  of  law  that  which  operated  in  the 
sphere  of  miracle,  and  the  last  state,  like  the  first, 
has  been  a  sense  of  wonder. 

We  pass  to  the  second  point  in  the  message  of 
Egypt.  It  is  the  belief  that  all  mystery  lies  in  the 
vision  of  a  boundary-line — in  that  which  divides  one 
life  from  another  life.  And  here  again  it  will  be 
found  that  the  experience  of  modern  times  is  the 
same.  Take  the  mystery  of  modern  Agnosticism. 
What  is  that  which  makes  the  scientist  of  our  day 
say  "  I  do  not  know  "  ?  It  is  the  fact  that  he  has 
discovered  a  boundary  -  line  which  he  cannot  pass. 
In  every  department  the  mystery  is  felt  to  be  this 
boundary-line.  Each  thing  is  manifestly  connected 
with  every  other  thing ;  yet  between  any  two  objects 
the  manner  of  connection  is  veiled.  Take  the  sim- 
plest act  of  perception.  What  is  the  reason  that  a 
little  thing  like  my  eye  can  hold  such  a  vast  field  as 
the  visible  universe  ?  Why  is  it  that  a  very  small 
picture  like  the  retina  can  take  in  such  a  wide  ex- 
panse as  the  starry  firmament  with  its  countless 
worlds  and  its  interstellar  spaces  ?  That  is  a  ques- 
tion which  no  man  can  answer.  It  is  an  ultimate 
fact  of  knowledge,  undisputed  and  indisputable,  but 
perfectly  inexplicable.  It  is  the  boundary-line  be- 
tween two  creations  —  the  human  and  the  physical. 


294  Messages  of  the  Old  Religions. 

There  they  stand,  parallel  to  one  another  and  con- 
nected with  one  anotlier,  but  connected  by  the  riddle 
of  the  Sphinx — ^joined  by  a  bond  which  no  man  lias 
seen,  and  intertwined  by  a  marriage  that  no  man  lias 
witnessed.  The  first  act  of  infancy,  the  most  exter- 
nal act  of  all  life,  is  -as  unintelligible  to  sense  as  any 
part  of  the  universe,  as  profound  a  mystery  as  the 
problem  of  creation  itself. 

If  we  take  any  other  sphere  of  thought,  we  shall 
find  the  same  experience — that  mystery  lies  in  the 
boundary-line.  There  is  a  missing  link  between 
matter  and  force,  between  plant  and  animal,  between 
animal  and  man,  between  one  man  and  another  man. 
It  is  these  missing  links  which  constitute  the  four 
great  mysteries  of  earth  —  the  mystery  of  life,  the 
mystery  of  consciousness,  the  mystery  of  intelligence 
and  the  mystery  of  personality.  Before  these  the 
scientist  bows.  They  are  the  margin  left  for  faith, 
or  for  what  to  him  stands  for  faith — Agnosticism. 
He  believes  in  the  riddle  of  the  Sphinx — in  the  fact 
that  the  lives  of  all  creation  are  somehow  united. 
But  that  "  somehow"  is  the  consecrated  spot.  It  is 
consecrated  by  its  mystery,  by  its  inscrutability,  by 
its  unknowableness.  It  is  a  sea  which  ship  has 
never  sailed,  a  depth  which  line  has  never  sounded. 
The  ancient  Egyptian  and  the  modern  scientist  stand 
alike  upon  the  shore  and  hear  the  play  of  incompre- 
hensible waters.     The  past  and  the  present  are  re- 


The  Message  of  Erjypt.  295 

conciled  in  the  vision  of  the  fathomless,  and  the 
evening  and  the  morning  are  one  day. 

And,  if  Egypt  added  yet  another  boundary -line 
in  the  great  fact  of  death,  she  surely  erred  not  by 
defect  of  logic.  If  she  regarded  it  hypothetically  as 
a  transition  field,  and  reverenced  it  as  a  hope,  she 
had  at  least  analogy  on  her  side ;  she  was  consistent 
with  herself,  and  consistent  with  the  facts  already 
known.  In  all  departments  of  life  she  had  found 
the  presence  of  the  Sphinx,  found  that  the  close  of 
one  form  of  being  was  but  the  entrance  into  another. 
She  had  discovered  in  each  case  that  the  process  of 
transition  was  perfectly  inexplicable.  If  matter  be- 
came spirit,  it  did  so  by  surrendering  its  own  life ; 
if  the  animal  became  the  man,  it  did  so  by  losing 
itself  in  an  existence  foreign  and  destructive  to  its 
own.  Is  it  surprising  that  she  should  have  gone 
one  step  further,  and  claimed  a  corresponding  egress 
for  the  valley  of  the  shadow  of  death  ?  Is  it  sur- 
prising that  in  this  terminus  of  the  individual  life 
she  should  have  seen  only  a  new  beginning  and  a 
possible  entrance  into  a  higher  sphere  ?  At  all 
events  she  has  done  so,  and  in  doing  so  she  has  been 
guilty  of  no  anachronism.  Upon  the  shore  of  death 
the  mass  of  humanity  still  stands  with  hope.  Even 
the  Positivism  of  a  J.  S.  Mill  did  not  seek  to  extin- 
guish hope's  trembling  star.  Agnosticism  itself  is  a 
form  of  hope ;  if  it  objects  to  aflirm,  it  refuses  to, 


296  Messages  of  the  Old  Religions. 

deny.  Its  attitude  is  that  of  the  uncovered  head 
acknowledging  the  presence  of  a  mystery.  The 
mystery  which  it  acknowledges  is  tlie  same  as  tliat 
before  which  Egypt  bowed  six  thousand  years  ago — 
the  recognition  of  an  invisible  boundary-line  between 
a  world  which  is  seen  and  temporal,  and  a  state 
which  no  man  can  define. 


The  Message  of  Judea,  297 


CHAPTEE    XIV. 

THE    MESSAGE    OF    JUDEA. 

It  seems  at  first  sight  as  if  this  were  a  message 
which  needed  no  chapter.  We  of  the  Christian 
persuasion  have  read  from  childhood  the  books  in 
which  it  professes  to  be  delivered.  We  are  familiar 
with  their  every  phrase ;  we  are  conversant  with 
their  every  sentiment.  They  have  become  to  us 
as  household  words.  They  are  a  species  of  litera- 
ture known  alike  to  the  cot  and  the  palace,  prized 
alike  by  the  peasant  and  the  sage.  One  would  cer- 
tainly imagine  that  their  purport  would  by  this 
time  be  read,  marked,  learned,  and  inwardly  digested. 
And  yet,  if  we  put  to  ourselves  the  question,  What 
is  the  message  of  Judea  ?  we  shall  probably  be  struck 
with  the  difficulty  of  giving  a  defensible  answer. 
Of  course  it  is  very  easy  to  tell  a  hundred  things 
that  are  taught  in  the  Old  Testament ;  but  the  ques- 
tion is,  Are  they  taught  there  alone  ?  If  not,  then 
they  cannot  be  regarded  as  tlie  distinctive  message 
of  Judea ;  they  must  be  looked  upon  as  parts  of  the 


298  Messages  of  the  Old  Fielifjions. 

religious  life  itself.  Let  us  consider  one  or  two  of 
the  answers  wliicli  are  popularly  given  to  this  ques- 
tion ;  we  shall  find  that  they  by  no  means  exhaust 
the  problem. 

And  first.  A  very  common  answer  is  that  the 
mission  of  Judea  was  to  tell  the  unity  of  God. 
That  ultimately  it  did  tell  the  unity  of  God  is 
beyond  dispute ;  whether  originally  it  did  so  is  very 
doubtful.  But  w'aiving  this,  is  the  unity  of  God  at 
any  time  a  doctrine  peculiar  to  Judaism  ?  I  have 
pointed  out  in  the  introduction  to  this  book  that  it 
is  at  all  times  more  natural  to  the  human  mind  than 
Polytheism.  We  have  seen,  moreover,  that  some  of 
the  earliest  forms  of  thought  have,  either  at  their 
base  or  at  their  apex,  held  the  existence  of  one 
central  principle.  India  culminates  in  this  belief, 
alike  in  the  system  called  Brahmanism,  and  in  that 
Nirvana  of  the  future  in  which  the  Buddhist  sees 
the  goal  of  all  things.  Egypt,  according  to  the  best 
interpreters,  recognises  this  thought  from  the  outset, 
and  more  distinctly  still.  The  many  here  are  but 
various  forms  of  the  one,  and  the  worship  of  the 
many  is  but  the  reverence  of  the  manifold  wisdom 
of  God.  I  do  not  for  a  moment  imagine  that  Judea 
got  her  notion  of  divine  unity  from  dwelling  in 
Egypt,  any  more  than  Egypt  received  hers  by  asso- 
ciating witli  Judea.  But  I  think  it  very  likely  that 
t^hey  may  have  been  brought  together,  and  for  a  time 
kept  together,  by  the  experience  common,  to  tlieiii 


The  Message  of  Judea.  299 

both.  Neither  the  one  nor  the  other  can  claim  the 
unity  of  God  as  a  distinctive  possession  ;  it  belongs 
to  both,  and  therefore  it  is  the  property  of  neither. 
Judaism  never  professes  to  have  a  special  revelation 
of  God ;  it  begins  by  assuming  God.  Instead  of  say- 
ing that  He  is,  it  says  that  He  created  the  heavens 
and  the  earth.  Why  so  ?  Clearly  because  the  dis- 
covery of  God's  being  was  not  appropriated  as  a 
part  of  the  national  consciousness.  The  Jew  felt 
that  he  had  come  into  it  as  into  an  inheritance  de- 
rived from  some  other  source.  It  had  been  his  from 
the  dawn  of  his  being,  and  therefore  it  was  not  his 
by  conquest.  It  was  a  possession  which  he  shared 
with  the  race  of  humanity,  a  foundation  on  which 
he  might  indeed  build  a  special  temple,  but  which 
was  at  the  same  time  the  foundation  for  independent 
houses,  and  one  on  which  the  Caananite  might  also 
build. 
^^  A  second  view  of  the  mission  of  Judaism  is  that 
which  regards  it  as  having  had  its  function  in  the 
proclaiming  of  moral  law.  That  it  did  proclaim  moral 
law  is  certain  ;  but  this  was  by  no  means  its  distinc- 
tive message.  If  the  record  of  Genesis  bears  witness 
to  the  fact  that  the  knowledge  of  God  was  earlier 
than  the  national  existence,  the  record  of  Exodus 
equally  attests  that  the  knowledge  of  morality  pre- 
ceded the  national  law.  At  whatever  time  the 
thundei's^  of  Sinai  proclaimed  "  Thou  shalt  not  kill, 
thou  shalt  not  steal,  thou  shalt  not  bear  false  witness 


300  Messages  of  the  Old  Beligions. 

against  thy  neighbour,"  they  appealed  to  an  already 
existing  culture.  Laws  have  no  meaning  except  on 
the  supposition  that  the  subjects  of  them  are  respon- 
sible beings.  A  moral  code  never  founded  morality ; 
it  is  itself  the  evidence  of  the  previous  existence 
of  morality.  Judea  only  got  from  Sinai  what  she 
brought  to  Sinai  —  a  conscience.  Whence  did  she 
derive  it  ?  From  Egypt  ?  No  ;  from  human  na- 
ture. But  undoubtedly  she  recognised  it  in  Egypt 
before  she  recognised  it  in  Sinai.  Egypt  was  her 
first  looking-glass,  the  earliest  mirror  in  which  she 
beheld  herself  Here  she  saw  a  morality  in  many 
respects  kindred  to  her  own.  Eenouf  has  not 
scrupled  to  say  that  the  morality  of  Egypt  contains 
every  Christian  virtue.-^  It  is  true,  there  is  a  leanin" 
rather  to  the  negative  than  to  the  positive  side ;  there 
is  more  stress  laid  on  what  we  are  not,  than  on  what 
we  are  to  do.  The  man  wdio  at  the  day  of  judgment 
is  able  to  disclaim  the  commission  of  forty-two  sins 
is  permitted  to  pass  into  glory.  But  it  must  be  con- 
fessed that  Judea  herself  leans  to  this  tendency  ;  lier 
decalogue  is  mainly  negative,  whether  as  regards 
man  or  as  regards  God.  To  acknowledge  none  equal 
to  tlie  God  of  Israel,  to  abstain  from  bowing  down 
to  graven  images,  to  avoid  irreverence  in  the  use  of 
the  holy  name,  to  keep  from  secular  thoughts  at 
sacred  times,  and,  in  general,  to  restrain  the  heart 

1  'Hibbert  Lectures  (1879)  on  the  Origin  and  Growth  of  Religion, 
as  illustrated  by  the  Religion  of  Egypt,'  p.  71. 


Tlic  Message  of  Judca.  301 

and  the  hand  from  doing  injury  to  a  brother  man, — 
these  are  main  tenets  of  lier  moral  law.  And  neither 
in  her  case  nor  in  the  case  of  Egypt  is  the  explana- 
tion far  to  seek.  It  lies  in  an  ultimate  law  of  the 
mind  of  man.  Conscience  only  begins  with  an  act 
of  prohibition  ;  it  does  not  exist  until  we  do  wrong. 
I  know  nothing  of  good  health  till  I  have  felt  my 
first  physical  pain ;  before  that  time  good  health  is 
my  nature,  and  no  man  recognises  his  nature.  To 
be  recognised,  it  must  be  broken,  sickness  must 
come,  disease  must  come,  the  vision  of  death  must 
come.  So  is  it  with  holiness ;  it  is  only  revealed  in 
the  breaking.  That  is  why  Egypt,  that  is  why  Judea, 
has  seen  the  power  of  morality  rather  in  that  which 
forbids  than  in  that  which  impels ;  they  have  sought 
her  on  the  threshold,  and  the  threshold  is  an  act  of 
prohibition.  Yet  the  threshold  is  neither  in  Egypt  nor 
in  Judea,  but  in  the  heart  of  man.  It  is  older  than 
Egypt,  it  is  older  than  Judea,  for  it  belongs  to  the 
life  of  the  soul,  and  is  therefore  distinctive  of  no  land. 
A  third  view  is  that  which  regards  Judaism  as 
having  had  for  its  mission  to  reveal  the  ways  of 
Providence.  Now,  it  cannot  be  denied  that  the  life 
of  Judea  is  a  marvellous  illustration  of  the  exist- 
ence of  a  Power  that  makes  for  righteousness. 
Whatever  be  the  order  of  that  life,  whether  it  be  the 
old  traditional  order  recognised  by  our  fathers  or 
the  new  sequence  proposed  by  the  light  of  modern 
criticism,  the  result  is  the  same.     It  matters  not  to 


302  Messages  of  the  Old  ricUgions. 

tlie  question  in  liand  wliether  wc  say  that  tlui  law 
preceded  the  prophets,  or  tliat  the  prophets  pre- 
ceded the  law ;  on  either  view  the  central  fact  re- 
mains unaffected.  We  see  a  nation,  of  very  insig- 
nificant extent,  of  very  circumscribed  position,  of 
very  limited  natural  resources,  assuming  a  command- 
ing, and  ultimately  a  dominant,  attitude  on  the 
earth.  Without  large  armies,  without  much  wealth, 
without  a  knowledge  of  secular  philosophy,  with- 
out those  arts  of  polish  and  finesse  which  constitute 
the  astute  statesman,  this  little  nation  has  aimed 
at  and  virtually  received  universal  dominion.  She 
has  set  up  an  ideal  of  world- conquest  most  power- 
fully asserted  in  the  days  of  her  deepest  calamity ; 
and,  in  a  way  she  never  dreamed  of,  she  has  carried 
it  through.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  she  has  given  to 
the  world  a  life  which  has  ruled  all  civilised  nations 
— a  life  after  whose  pattern  and  model  all  other  lives 
have  sought  to  mould  themselves.  Nor  is  it  less 
remarkable  that  the  life  by  which  she  has  conquered 
has  not  been  her  own  ideal  of  greatness,  has  been  in 
direct  antagonism  to  that  ideal.  She  has  repudiated 
the  crown  which  has  made  her  despotic,  she  has 
abjured  the  weapon  which  has  proved  her  victorious. 
All  this  seems  to  denote  a  force  beyond  herself.  It 
seems  to  indicate  the  presence  and  the  superintend- 
ence of  a  divine  instinct  which,  as  with  the  bee,  has 
led,  by  a  series  of  undesigned  acts,  to  the  construc- 
tion of  a  kingdom  of  consummate  order. 


The  Message  of  Jadea.  303 

But  when  all  has  been  said,  we  must  still  ask,  Is 
this  the  message  of  the  nation  ?  Is  it  not  rather 
its  completed  result,  its  exit,  its  terminus  ?  When 
this  result  came,  did  not  the  nation  as  a  nation  cease 
to  be?  Can  we  say  that  its  function  was  only  to 
come  with  its  death,  that  its  use  was  only  to  be  dis- 
covered in  the  hour  of  its  dissolution  ?  Had  it  no 
value  for  its  time,  no  meaning  for  the  thousand  years 
during  which  it  had  a  local  habitation  as  well  as  a 
name  ?  Did  it  differ  from  all  other  lands  in  being 
without  an  influence  on  its  contemporaries  ?  Had 
it,  in  short,  no  place  in  history  as  long  as  its  own 
history  lasted,  and  only  the  office  of  giving  a  lesson 
to  posterity  when  the  curtain  had  fallen  over  its  own 
career  ?  This  we  cannot  believe.  It  is  contrary  to 
nature ;  it  is  contrary  to  analogy.  It  is  contradicted 
even  by  the  continued  life  of  the  people  without  a 
country — a  people  who  have  refused  to  accept  the 
conclusion  derived  from  their  national  drama,  and 
have  denied  its  final  act  to  be  a  part  of  their  des- 
tiny. We  must  look  elsewhere  for  a  solution  of 
the  problem,  What  is  the  message  of  the  Jewish 
nation  ? 

If  we  would  find  that  solution,  we  must  look  for 
the  most  pervading  element  in  the  records  of  the 
Hebrew  race.  What  is  that  which  from  beoinnimj 
to  end  permeates  its  literature  most  persistently  and 
most  unwaveringly  ?  Clearly  it  must  be  something 
of  a  Semitic  caste.     I  said  in  the  previous  chapter 


30  4  Messages  of  the  Old  Ptelirjions. 

that  the  Semite  is  distinguishefl  from  the  Aryan  by 
the  predominance  of  the  sense  of  mystery.  We  saw- 
that  the  mystery  of  Egypt  was  virtually  the  mystery 
of  evolution — the  process  by  which  one  thing  passes 
into  another  thing.  What  is  the  mystery  of  Judea  ? 
Let  us  listen  to  one  of  the  latest  voices  of  the  nation, 
and  T  think  we  shall  find  the  clue  for  which  we  are 
searching.  In  the  first  Epistle  to  Timothy  we  read, 
"Great  is  the  mystery  of  godliness."  The  words 
bore  a  different  meaning  then  to  what  they  do  now, 
and  they  must  be  paraphrased,  not  translated.  A 
mystery  then  meant  something  invisible — something 
which  could  not  be  detected  by  the  sense.  The 
mystery  of  godliness,  therefore,  is  equivalent  to  the 
unseenncss  of  godliness ;  it  really  amounts  to  the 
statement  that  the  path  by  which  we  approach  the 
throne  of  God  is  the  path  of  the  internal.  According 
to  this  writer,  the  great  message  of  Judea  is  the 
power  of  inwardness  in  the  religious  life.  Now,  if 
we  fall  backward  and  examine  the  earlier  voices,  we 
shall  find  that  they  present  a  wonderful  consistency. 
We  shall  find  that  the  power  of  the  internal  is  the 
thought  on  which  the  Old  Testament  rings  its 
changes  from  morn  to  noon,  from  noon  to  dewy 
eve.  It  is  the  moral  of  all  its  history,  the  secret  of 
all  its  poetry,  the  burden  of  all  its  song.  It  covers 
the  whole  area  of  its  teaching;  it  permeates  the 
entire  course  of  its  development ;  it  runs  in  a  con- 
tinuous refrain  throupjh  its  endless  variations.    Other 


The  Message  of  Jiulea.  305 

messages  may  vary  with  the  hour,  other  thoughts 
may  be  modified  with  the  place  ;  but  this  is  indepeu- 
dent  of  time  and  impervious  to  locality  ;  it  is  the 
same  yesterday  and  to-day  and  for  ever. 

Perhaps  at  the  outset  one  is  disposed  to  be  struck 
with  the  paradox  of  such  a  statement.  We  have 
been  in  the  habit  of  regarding  the  message  of  Judea 
as  antagonistic  to  the  message  of  Christianity.  We 
hear  the  first  Christian  teachers  distinguishing  be- 
tween the  flesh  and  the  spirit,  and  calling  men  to 
abandon  the  mean  and  beggarly  elements  of  the 
letter.  We  naturally  conclude  that  Judaism  must 
have  been  a  most  external  faith,  and  her  message  a 
most  sensuous  hope.  But  we  forget  altogether  that 
the  men  who  thus  denounce  the  lettQr  are  themselves 
Jews.  The  voice  of  the  New  Testament  is  not 
one  nation  calling  against  another ;  it  is  a  nation 
summoning  itself.  The  disciple  of  Christ  is  crying 
to  his  countryman,  Be  true  to  yourselves,  true  to 
your  message,  true  to  your  national  ideal.  It  is  no 
new  voice ;  it  is  the  cry  of  all  the  prophets.  What 
is  Jewish  prophecy  but  a  great  protest  in  favour  of 
return  to  the  national  ideal  ?  It  reminds  the  men  of 
Israel  that,  in  seeking  the  flesh  in  preference  to  the 
spirit,  they  are  deserting  their  own  standard  and 
abandoning  their  own  landmarks ;  that  is  the  reason 
why  their  watchword  is  so  constantly  "return."  It 
is  a  going  back  to  the  primitive  type  which  the 
prophets  of  Israel  desired  ;  and  that  primitive  type 

U 


306  Messages  of  til c  Old  Bcligions. 

is  believed  to  have  its  luut  in  a  recoi'iiiLiuii  of  the 
thiiii^s  that  are  unseen. 

The  only  question  is,  Were  they  liglit  in  llieir 
belief  ?  Does  an  examination  of  the  Hebrew  writ- 
ings lead  to  the  conviction  that  they  are  Ijased  on  a 
preference  for  the  internal  ?  There  are  four  distinct 
departments  under  which  the  life  of  the  Jew  may 
be  considered — his  history,  his  theology,  his  poetry, 
and  his  morality.  Let  us  look  at  these  one  by  one. 
And  first.  By  the  history,  I  mean  of  course  the 
reco;^ded  history.  I  have  here  notliing  to  do  with 
the  putting  right  of  the  Hebrew  annals  ;  I  lea\'e 
that  to  the  latest  criticism.  We  have  only  to  con- 
sider the  account  these  annals  give  of  themselves, 
and  thence  to  determine  the  message  which  they 
design  to  convey.  Now  on  their  very  threshold 
there  is  a  remarkable  narrative,  popularly  called  the 
story  of  the  Fall.  We  are  familiar  with  it  theologi- 
cally ;  but  what  is  it  artistically, — in  other  words, 
what  is  the  actual  picture  which  it  presents  ?  In 
plain  language,  it  is  simply  the  vision  of  a  man  who 
gets  his  choice  between  the  internal  and  the  external, 
and  who  prefers  the  latter.  We  see  a  tree  of  know- 
ledge desired,  not  because  it  was  a  tree  of  Ivuowledge, 
but  because  it  was  pleasant  to  the  sight  and  good  for 
food,  and  eligible  for  the  reputation  it  conferred  of 
being  wise.  As  a  form  of  life  knowledge  itself  is 
not  prized ;  it  is  only  prized  as  a  form  of  display. 
The  tree  of  life  —  the  other  central  growth  of  the 


Tlie  Messcuje  of  Jtidea.  307 

iiMi'deii — is  ne\er  forbidden,  but  .it  is  never  coveted. 
It  is  uncoveted  simply  because  it  is  inward.  Witli 
the  primitive  man,  as  with  his  descendants,  the  effect 
is  a  greater  object  of  interest  than  tlie  cause,  and  the 
thing  which  is  produced  more  vahiable  than  that 
which  produced  it.  In  this  fine  allegory  there  is 
no  anachronism ;  the  essence  of  human  nature  is 
revealed  once  for  all.  The  Hebrew  race  in  this 
story  has  put  its  hand  on  its  own  imperfection  and 
the  imperfection  of  humanity ;  but  the  power  to 
discover  one's  imperfection  is  already  a  sign  that  we 
have  passed  beyond  it.  The  Hebrew  has  admitted 
his  own  failure,  but  in  the  very  act  he  has  revealed 
the  strength  of  his  ideal ;  his  narrative  of  the  Fall 
is  his  first  protest  in  favour  of  the  inner  life. 

The  second  remarkable  narrative  in  the  Hebrew 
annals  brings  out  the  same  principle  in  a  different 
form;  it  is  the  call  of  Abraham.  Here  again  we 
have  an  act  of  choice.  True,  it  is  no  longer  the 
direct  choice  between  the  outward  and  the  inward ; 
it  is  rather  the  alternative  between  two  Idnds  of 
physical  good.  There  stand  before  the  eyes  of  Abra- 
ham two  prospects — a  land  in  present  possession,  and 
a  land  which  can  only  be  possessed  in  the  future, 
and  as  the  result  of  much  toil.  Yet  the  choice  of 
Abraham  is  indirectly  the  same  as  the  choice  of  the 
primitive  Adam.  How^ever  outward  the  coming  land 
may  have  been,  it  was  to  him  as  yet  a  thing  of  ima- 
gination alone.     The  approach  to  it  was  compassed 


308  Messages  of  the  Old  Belirjions. 

by  seeming  impossibilities.  He  could  only  begin  to 
journey  towards  it  by  closing  bis  eyes  to  everytbing 
around  bim,  bv  sbutting  out  from  bis  sigbt  all  tbat 
was  present  or  palpable.  He  bad  to  leave  bis  country, 
bis  kindred,  bis  bome,  to  part  from  tbe  associations 
of  bis  youtb,  to  abandon  tbe  worsbip  of  his  ancestors, 
and  to  travel  into  a  region  to  bim  utterly  unknown, 
and  presenting  to  bis  view  not  a  single  avenue  of 
approach.  The  writer  to  tbe  Hebrews  has  caught 
tbe  true  moral  of  tbe  story  when  be  places  this  man 
among  tbe  heroes  of  faith  ;  he  feels  that  such  a  choice 
was  essentially  a  choice  of  tbe  internal.  Tbe  faith 
of  Abraham  has  become  a  proverbial  phrase ;  why 
so  ?  Because  faith  is  the  sight  of  the  internal.  Abra- 
ham had  other  qualities  on  which  tradition  might 
well  have  fastened;  be  had  courage,  and  chivalry, 
and  generosity,  and  fidelity,  and,  above  all,  tbe  spirit 
of  sacrificial  love.  But  in  the  mind  of  the  world  all 
these  fall  into  the  background  before  the  radiant  fact 
tbat  be  followed  an  aim  which  was  invisible.  They 
are  overshadowed  in  the  presence  of  a  life  which 
abandons  to-day  for  to-morrow,  and  leaves  the  bread 
of  the  hour  for  something  which  can  yield  its  interest 
only  in  an  age  to  come. 

Now,  let  us  observe,  this  type  of  character  is  pre- 
served throughout  the  history  of  the  Jewish  nation 
— preserved  consciously  and  deliberately  as  the  dis- 
tinctive feature  of  tbe  national  mind.  How  often 
are  tbe  words  repeated,  "  I  am  the  God  of  Abraham  "  ? 


The  Message  of  Judea.  309 

And  what  do  they  mean  but  simply  this,  that  the 
rise  or  fall  of  the  nation  is  to  be  estimated  by  the 
height  of  its  faith  ?  Luther  said  that  justification  by 
faith  was  the  doctrine  of  a  standing  or  of  a  falling 
Church ;  the  Jewish  scriptures  say  that  justification 
by  faith  is  the  doctrine  of  a  standing  or  of  a  falling 
State.  The  Old  Testament  measures  all  its  heroes  by 
their  power  to  resist  the  external;  to  postpone  the 
impression  of  the  hour.  Take  Jacob  and  Esau.  Why 
is  the  former  preferred  to  the  latter?  The  bold 
Imnter  had  many  qualities  which  were  not  shared  by 
the  sleek  shepherd.  But  the  shepherd  excelled  him 
in  one  thing — the  power  to  withstand  the  influence 
of  the  moment.  Esau  sells  his  birthright  for  a  mess 
of  pottage  ;  he  prefers  the  visible  to  the  invisible. 
Jacob  sells  the  pottage  for  the  birthright ;  he  prefers 
the  bird  in  the  bush  to  that  in  the  hand.  What  was 
that  birthright  ?  It  was  the  heirship  to  an  uncer- 
tainty, so  far  as  human  knowledge  was  concerned. 
It  was  the  right  to  search  for  gold  in  an  undiscovered 
country,  to  assume  a  title  for  which  the  world  as  yet 
had  no  place ;  the  man  who  could  do  this  was  a  man 
of  faith.  Or,  take  Moses.  His  was  a  life  of  great 
eventfuluGSS.  It  began  in  the  burning  aspirations  of 
Midian,  and  it  ended  in  the  shadowless  retrospect  of 
Nebo.  It  was  a  life  of  thunders  and  lightnings,  such 
as  poet  and  painter  would  have  longed  to  portray. 
Yet,  to  tlie  writer  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  its 
moral  is  all  summed  up  in  one  word  —  inwardness. 


310  Messages  of  the  Old  Religions. 

To  him  the  glory  of  Moses  is  that  "  he  esteemed  the 
reproach  of  Christ  greater  riches  than  all  tlie  treasures 
of  Egypt."  It  is  by  his  meekness  that  this  man  has 
inherited  the  earth ;  it  is  his  gentleness  that  makes 
him  great.  He  follows  the  long  instead  of  the  short 
road  to  the  land  of  Canaan,  and  he  endures  "  as  see- 
ing Him  who  is  invisible."  Or,  take  Solomon — the 
type  of  the  national  wealth  and  magnificence.  In 
the  most  brilliant  period  of  the  country's  annals,  in 
the  age  when  the  appetite  for  war  had  been  stimu- 
lated by  conquest,  and  the  lust  for  money  had  been 
quickened  by  luxury,  he  is  represented  as  making 
his  choice  in  favour  of  the  inward  riches.  It  is  the 
one  element  which  connects  the  meridian  of  Jewish 
history  with  its  dawn.  Between  the  patriarchal  and 
the  regal  age  there  is  little  sympathy ;  the  king 
that  has  risen  knows  not  Joseph.  But  amid  all  the 
changes  in  government  and  polity  and  life,  amid  the 
passing  away  of  the  old  and  the  emerging  of  the  new, 
one  thing  remains  constant,  unwavering,  ever  green  ; 
it  is  that  which  constituted  the  distinctiveness  of  the 
nation's  youth,  and  continues  to  constitute  the  dis- 
tinctiveness of  its  manhood, — the  search  for  gold 
below  the  surface,  the  choice  of  the  internal 

Here  I  take  leave  of  the  historical  aspect  of  the 
nation.  I  have  given  only  a  few  specimens,  but  they 
are  specimens  not  of  a  part  but  of  the  whole.  They 
are  representative  of  the  Jewish  commonwealth,  and 
I  know  not  a  single  exception  to  tlieir  message.    The 


The  Message  of  Jndca.  311 

moral  of  all  Jewish  history  is  tliat  the  elder  should 
serve  the  younger — that  the  natural  man,  who  comes 
first,  should  be  superseded  by  the  spiritual  man,  who 
comes  last.  This  is  the  burden  of  all  its  teaching 
from  the  beginning  to  the  end.  Cain  and  Abel, 
Isaac  and  Ishmael,  Joseph  and  Eeuben,  Saul  and 
David,  are  only  landmarks  of  a  tendency  that  runs 
along  the  whole  line  of  the  national  life.  There  are 
evidences  that  it  was  not  unopposed  by  the  nation, 
there  are  traces  that  it  had  to  be  taught  by  stern  ex- 
perience. Eve  says  of  her  firstborn,  Cain,  "  I  have 
gotten  a  man  from  the  Lord ; "  and  Abraham  prays 
for  the  more  warlike  of  his  sons,  "  0  that  Ishmael 
might  live  before  Thee."  But  none  the  less,  nay, 
all  the  more,  is  it  the  message  of  the  children  of 
Israel.  If  it  is  not  the  result  of  estheticism,  if  it  is 
not  the  fruit  of  inborn  admiration,  if  it  has  persisted 
through  opposition  and  survived  in  spite  of  prejudice, 
it  furnishes  only  an  additional  proof  that  Judea  was 
impelled  by  a  destiny  higher  than  her  own  will. 


312  Mcsscifjcs  of  the  Old  licligions. 


CHAPTEE    XY. 

THE    SUBJECT    CONTINUED. 

The  second  point  of  interest  in  the  life  of  Jiidea  is 
its  theology.  And  in  its  theology  as  in  its  history, 
the  central  article  is  inwardness.  That  article  is 
expressed  in  the  second  commandment  of  the  Jewish 
law,  "Thou  shalt  not  make  unto  thee  any  graven 
image,  nor  any  likeness  of  anything  that  is  in 
heaven  above  nor  in  the  earth  beneath  nor  in  the 
waters  under  the  earth ;  thou  shalt  not  bow  down 
thyself  to  them  nor  serve  them."  The  command  is 
more  comprehensive  than  is  popularly  supposed.  It 
includes  two  parts.  On  the  one  hand,  the  Jew  is 
forbidden  to  make  a  reverential  likeness  of  any 
object  of  creation  ;  on  the  other,  he  is  forbidden  to 
make  any  object  of  creation  a  likeness  of  God 
Himself.  The  design  is  therefore  to  prevent  botli 
idolatry  and  nature-worship  —  in  other  words,  to 
exclude  from  the  true  faith  all  symbolism  what- 
soever. You  will  observe  at  once  the  analogy  and 
the  difference  between  this  and  Egypt.      Egypt,  like 


The  Message  of  Judea.  313 

Judea,  has  no  special  symbol  of  God,  but  why? 
Just  that  the  whole  universe  may  be  His  symbol. 
To  the  Egyptian  the  important  part  of  every  object 
is  the  point  where  it  fades  into  another  object ;  the 
imaG^e  of  God  must  to  him  be  the  world  as  a  whole. 
But  to  the  Jew  not  even  this  was  to  be  God's 
image;  God  was  to  have  no  image.^  The  heaven  of 
heavens  could  not  contain  Him ;  He  charged  His 
very  angels  with  folly.  To  the  eye  of  the  lawgiver, 
as  to  the  eye  of  the  psalmist,  the  aspect  of  united 
nature  was  but  one  of  the  changes  in  the  vesture  of 
the  Eternal ;  he  would  say  of  a  thousand  universes, 
"  They  perish,  but  Tliou  remainest ;  they  all  wax  old 
as  doth  a  garment,  and  as  a  vesture  shalt  Thou  fold 
them  up,  and  they  shall  be  changed ;  but  Thou  art 
the  same,  and  Thy  years  shall  have  no  end." 

I  would  not  have  it  thought,  however,  that  the 
Hebrew  notion  of  God  was  one  of  impersonality; 
this  is  one  of  the  points  in  whicli,  I  think,  Mr 
Matthew  Arnold  has  erred.  The  creed  of  Judaism 
is  a  protest  in  favour  of  an  inward  God ;  but  to  the 
Jew  inward  meant  human.  Let  us  never  forget 
that  the  act  forbidden  to  him  was  not  the  con- 
ceivinf]f  of  God  after  a  likeness,  but  the  conceivino- 
of  God  after  the  likeness  of  a  thinrj.  The  root  of 
Jewish  religion  is  placed  in  the  belief  that  man  was 
made  in  the  imacre  of  God.  If  man  is  not  to  ima^e 
God,  it  is  because  he  is  not  to  stoop  below  himself. 

'  Compare  Isaiah  xl.  18. 


314  Messages  of  the  Old  Religions. 

He  contains  within  himself  the  inward  principle, 
and  that  principle  is  not  only  God-given  but  God- 
breathed  ;  it  is  itself  an  integral  part  of  tlie  life  of 
the  Eternal.  Judaism  is  not  so  far  from  Christianity 
as  is  commonly  supposed.  It  is  founded  on  the 
identity  of  the  human  and  the  divine.  The  distance 
is  one  of  miles,  not  of  nature.  If  the  Creator  is 
placed  beyond  the  direct  reach  of  the  creature,  it  is 
in  the  same  sense  that  a  king  is  beyond  the  direct 
reach  of  a  peasant.  There  is  never  such  a  distance 
as  would  make  mind  one  thing  in  God  and  another 
thing  in  man.  To  the  son  of  Israel  the  mind  c)f 
man  was  the  miniature  of  the  mind  of  God.  To 
him  the  divinest  thing  in  the  universe  was  will — 
the  innermost  force,  the  force  behind  nature,  the 
force  that  can  say  "  Thou  shalt ;  thou  shalt  not." 
The  image  of  God  in  man  was  the  power  of  choice. 
When  the  soul  received  its  first  alternative,  it 
received  its  first  likeness  to  the  divine ;  for  that 
which  unites  the  human  to  the  divine  is  tlie  voice 
of  personality — the  power  to  say  "  I  will."  Hence 
to  the  son  of  Israel  the  voice  and  not  tlie  form 
becomes  the  likeness  of  God.^  "  The  Lord  saith  "  is 
the  formula  which  expresses  the  Jewish  sense  of  the 
nature  of  God.  The  Greek  would  have  clothed  Him 
in  all  the  glories  of  tlie  morning ;  but  to  the  Hebrew 
the  glories  of  the  morning  were  nothing  to  the  glory 
of   personality.     What   the  Jew   magnified  in   God 

^  See  specially  Psalm  xxix. 


The  Message  of  Judea.  315 

was  His  law.  It  was  not  merely  that  it  was  a 
moral  law,  but  that  it  vms  a  law — an  expression  of 
will,  a  voice  of  command.  The  prerogative  of  God 
was  to  reign,  and  the  majesty  of  reigning  lay  in  its 
manifestation  of  a  will.  Hence  to  the  Jew  the  most 
glorious  of  all  things  became  the  possession  of  a 
kingdom.  His  most  secular  life  had  its  root  in  his 
most  religious,  in  his  most  internal  life.  He  sought 
a  kingdom  not  from  ambition  but  from  veneration 
— to  be  like  God.  If  his  God  had  been  a  represen- 
tative of  beauty,  he  would  have  carved  statues  in 
His  praise ;  but  his  God  is  a  representative  of  will, 
and  therefore  he  carves  for  Him  a  kingdom.  His 
search  for  universal  empire  is  in  its  root  an  act  of 
worshij-) — the  worship  of  the  innermost  thing  in 
human  nature,  contemplated  as  the  likeness  of  the 
divine  Life. 

I  cannot  quit  this  part  of  the  subject  without 
pointing  out  that  nowhere  has  Judaism  been  so 
little  superannuated  as  in  this  worship  of  the  will. 
It  is  the  one  point  in  which  modern  science  can  still 
unite  itself  with  theological  study.  This  science  is 
in  its  essence  a  recognition  of  Force  as  the  supreme 
entity.  Force  is  a  mental  conception.  It  is  an  idea 
derived  from  the  exercise  of  will,  and  derivable  from 
no  other  source.  If  there  be  an  ultimate  force  in 
the  universe,  so  far  as  our  present  knowledge  ex- 
tends, it  can  only  be  a  will  force.  When  I  speak  of 
the  power  of  gravity,  the  power  of  cohesion — nay. 


316  Messages  of  the  Old  Religions. 

even  the  power  of  motion  —  what  do  I  mean  ? 
Have  I  not  simply  transferred  a  mental  thought  to 
a  physical  object?  I  know  nothing  of  power  in 
nature  except  as  suggested  l)y  my  own  consciousness. 
The  very  idea  of  cause  is  a  mental  idea.  Mr  Mill  is 
quite  right  when  he  says  that  from  the  sight  of 
nature  alone  we  get  nothing  but  antecedents  and 
consequents.  If  I  put  my  hand  to  the  light  of  a 
taper,  it  is  burned ;  but  if  I  say  that  the  taper  had 
power  to  burn  my  hand,  I  have  gone  beyond  the 
facts  of  mere  nature.  I  liave  put  into  the  taper  the 
analogy  of  my  own  spirit,  and  have  conceived  it 
after  the  likeness  of  man.  So  is  it  with  the  concep- 
tion of  force.  It  is  a  conception  rather  of  theology 
than  of  science.  It  is  a  clothing  of  the  universe  in 
the  likeness  of  the  human  soul.  It  is  a  regress 
towards  that  creed  of  the  man  of  Israel  which 
placed  in  the  centre  of  all  things  the  movements 
of  a  personal  will. 

The  third  distinctive  element  in  the  life  of  the 
Jewish  nation  is  its  poetry.  In  the  introduction  to 
this  volume,  I  have  defined  poetry  to  be  the  incar- 
nation of  truth — the  clothing  of  one  thing  in  the 
vesture  of  another  thing.  In  Judaism  the  thing 
which  is  clothed  is  the  innermost  force  of  life — the 
nation's  religious  faith.  Do  not  imagine  that  when 
I  speak  of  the  poetic  character  of  the  Hebrew  mind, 
I  limit  the  phrase  to  the  works  of  an  Isaiah  or  a 
Jeremiah.     To  me  the  poetry  of  the  Old  Testament 


The  Message  of  J iiclea.  317 

is  interwoven  with  its  history.  On  any  view,  even 
on  the  most  orthodox  view,  tlie  facts  are  not  the 
revelation ;  they  are  only  the  symbols  of  the  revela- 
tion. The  poetry  lies  in  the  thought  beneath  the 
form,  or  rather  in  the  symmetry  with  which  the 
thought  exp'csses  the  form.  Where  lies  the  charm, 
the  unique  charm,  of  the  narratives  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment ?  AVhat  is  tliat  which  has  made  them  delight- 
ful to  the  Sabbath-school  child  and  interesting  to  the 
grave  philosopher  ?  It  is  that  in  them  which  lurks 
below  the  colouring.  It  is  not  their  local  or  national 
element;  it  is  the  fact  that  the  garb  of  the  nation 
conceals  something  which  is  not  local,  not  limited, 
not  geographical, — something  which  has  enshrined 
itself  in  a  temporary  form,  but  which  is  itself  con- 
temporaneous wdth  all  time  and  independent  of  any 
space,  the  possession  of  the  world,  and  the  property 
of  man  as  man. 

A  moment's  glance  at  one  or  two  of  these  nai- 
ratives  will  make  this  abundantly  clear.  What,  for 
example,  is  the  poetic  beauty  of  the  story  of  the 
Fall  ?  Is  it  the  statement  that  the  sin  of  the  human 
race  began  with  a  trivial  act  on  the  surface  ?  On 
the  contrary,  it  is  the  statement  that  this  trivial  act 
was  not  a  beginning  at  all  but  an  ending,  that  when 
the  sin  came  to  the  commonplace  surface  of  life  it 
came  to  its  climax.  This  is  the  thought  which  has 
been  incarnated  in  the  old  story  of  Eden,  and  it  is 
a  thought  as  modern  to  the  Englishman  as  to  the 


318  Messages  of  ih^t  Old  Religions. 

Jew.  AVe  are  made  to  feel  that  the  overt  aet  is  the 
least  culpable  part  of  the  process,  that  it  is  only  the 
last  result  of  a  long  series  of  mental  errors.  We  are 
made  to  see,  in  the  most  subtle  manner,  that  ere  ever 
the  human  soul  disobeyed  it  had  learnt  to  distrust ; 
that  before  it  violated  the  existing  law  it  had  come 
to  think  of  the  Lawgiver  as  one  who  was  jealous  of 
His  creatures.  Mr  Browning  could  have  expressed 
no  better  a  very  abstruse  thought.  It  is  indeed  a 
thought  which  belongs  essentially  to  his  line  of 
poetry,  and  even  its  expression  has  somewhat  of  his 
ring.  It  is  a  keen  analysis  of  human  nature,  given 
in  the  form  of  allegory.  The  figures  move  before  us 
in  the  simplest  garb,  and  use  very  few  words.  If 
you  would  understand  their  meaning,  you  must  read 
between  the  lines.  If  you  would  penetrate  the  depth 
of  the  dramatic  situation,  you  must  come  to  the 
scene  with  an  already  rich  human  nature,  amply 
stored  with  w^orldly  experience.  The  narrative  is 
poetic  and  childlike,  but  it  is  the  reverse  of  childish. 
It  is  the  artlessness  which  conceals  art.  It  is  the 
poetry  of  reflection,  not  of  spontaneous  impulse.  On 
what  professes  to  be  the  threshold  of  the  national 
history,  it  asserts  once  for  all  the  message  of  the 
nation.  It  is  a  son^-  not  for  the  sake  of  sin^ins;,  but 
for  the  sake  of  morals.  It  is  sung  with  a  purpose, 
and,  though  it  decks  itself  in  all  the  leaves  of  the 
garden,  that  purpose  is  not  beauty.  It  is  a  song 
whose  object  is  not  sense  but  soul,  not  charm  but 


The  Message  of  Jndea.  319 

chastity,  uot  radiance  but  righteousness.  It  has  sur- 
vived the  scene,  even  the  imagination  of  the  scene, 
in  which  it  had  its  birth ;  it  has  been  (Eternal  because 
it  has  been  i?iternaL 

Ao'ain.     The   sacrifice   of  Abraham   is  one  of  the 

o 

most  picturesque  narratives  which  have  ever  been 
written.  It  has  appealed  to  all  nations,  to  all  ages, 
to  all  circumstances.  Yet  where  lies  the  poetry  of 
that  narrative  ?  Clearly  in  the  fact  that  the  sacrifice 
was  an  internal  one.  If  Abraham  had  reallj^  offered 
his  son,  the  picture  would  have  been  revoltingiy 
unpoetical.  The  beauty  lies  in  the  knowledge  that 
the  offering  was  never  outwardly  accepted,  that  the 
will  was  taken  for  the  deed.  Here  we  have  a 
heroism  of  a  singular  kind  —  a  man  who  has  the 
merit  of  doing  everything  without  actually  doing 
anything.  It  is  a  heroism  in  which  the  combatant 
wrestles  not  against  flesh  and  blood,  but  against  the 
solicitations  of  his  own  mind.  The  battle-field  is 
inward,  the  weapons  are  inward,  the  warfare  is  in- 
ward. It  is  a  conflict  that  has  no  spectators,  and 
for  whose  decision  there  can  be  no  wreath.  On 
every  side  the  poetry  of  the  narrative  depends  on 
the  shifting  of  the  scene  from  the  world  without  to 
the  world  within.  Heaven  must  receive  the  offerin^^^ 
from  earth  only  in  a  figure;^  reality  would  make 
the  record  worse  than  prosaic.  j\Ian  must  be  taught 
the  lesson  that  there  may  be  a  divine  sacrifice  which 

'  Compare  Hebrews  xi.  19. 


320  Messages  of  the  Old  Religions. 

gives  no  rnaterial  gift,  and  that  the  deepest  surrender 
of  the  soul  is  in  that  moment  when  its  love  can  find 
no  expression.  It  is  a  point  of  high  significance 
that  the  clothing  of  this  thought  in  symbolism 
should  have  been  reserved  for  the  inspiration  of  a 
race  whose  message  was  the  power  of  the  internal. 

Take  one  instance  more — the  vision  which  Moses 
beheld  of  a  bush  that  burned  and  was  not  consumed. 
AVhere  lies  the  poetry  of  this  symbol?  Is  it  in 
the  fact  of  its  marvellousness  ?  Certainly  not.  The 
appeal  which  it  makes  is  not  to  the  eye  but  to  the 
heart.  The  poetry  consists  in  its  being  a  symbol  not 
of  that  which  is  rare,  but  of  that  which  is  constant 
and  abiding.  It  points  to  a  law  of  the  inner  life. 
It  tells  Moses  that  the  best  preservative  from  being 
consumed  is  that  very  tire  which  he  dreads ;  that  the 
soul  is  kept  alive  by  its  own  burning.  This,  and  not 
the  wonder,  is  the  poetry  of  the  scene.  It  is  a  call 
to  the  future  leader  to  enter  into  tlie  enthusiasm 
of  love,  with  a  promise  that  this  enthusiasm  will 
rob  the  cares  of  life  of  the  power  to  make  him  old. 
And  the  promise  is  declared  to  have  been  most 
wonderfully  fulfilled  in  that  last  hour  of  the  law- 
giver's pilgrimage,  in  wliich,  amid  the  shadows  of  age, 
he  stood  on  the  heights  of  Pisgah  and  surveyed  the 
coming  land  with  an  eye  that  was  not  dim  and  a 
natural  strength  that  was  not  abated.  The  vision  of 
Mount  Pisgah  and  the  vision  of  the  burning  bush 
are  one.    They  both  sing  the  same  song — the  triumph 


The  Message  of  Judca.  321 

of  tlie  in\Yard  over  the  outward,  the  conquest  of  the 
fires  of  earth  by  the  fire  of  the  soul.  They  tell  of  a 
fiery  furnace  which,  if  only  sufficiently  heated,  will 
preserve  without  hurt  those  that  are  cast  therein, 
and  which,  so  far  from  adding  to  the  chains  of  life, 
will  cause  many  for  the  first  time  to  walk  cumberless 
and  free. 

I  regard,  therefore,  the  poetry  of  the  Bible  as 
something  which  is  inextricably  bound  up  in  its 
history,  and  which  teaches  the  same  lesson  as  its 
history — the  subservience  of  the  form  to  the  spirit. 
If  we  look  at  those  Old  Testament  writings  which  in 
a  special  sense  are  called  poetic,  we  shall  find  pre- 
cisely the  same  experience.  If  I  were  asked  to  lay 
my  hand  on  the  thing  whicli  above  all  others  charac- 
terises these  writings,  I  would  say  "  inwardness."  It 
may  seem  a  bold  statement,  but  I  do  not  at  present 
know  a  single  passage  in  these  writings  which  deals 
with  outward  nature  for  its  own  sake.  Tliere  is  a 
sacred  poetry  wdiich  begins  with  nature  and  then 
rises  to  nature's  God ;  but  Judea  is  not  content  with 
that.  She  begins  with  God,  continues  with  God,  and 
ends  with  God.  I  look  in  vain  for  any  instance  in 
which  the  eye  of  her  poet  rests  on  beauty  for  itself 
alone.  He  considers  the  heavens,  but  it  is  as  the 
work  of  God's  hands  ;  he  views  the  earth,  but  it  is  as 
God's  footstool;  he  contemplates  the  winds,  but  it 
is  as  God's  ministers;  he  studies  the  stars,  but  it  is 
as  God's  host;  he  hears   the  thunder,  but  it  is  as 

X 


322  Messages  of  the  Old  Religions. 

God's  voice.  There  are  passages  in  the  book  of  Job 
as  majestically  descriptive  of  nature  as  anything  in 
literature;  but  none  of  them  is  introduced  for  its 
own  sake.  They  are  hung  upon  the  fringe  of  an 
argument  whose  decision  belongs  to  another  region, 
and  whose  interest  conceals  from  the  reader's  view 
the  form  and  the  beauty  of  all  earthly  things.  It 
has  often  been  said  that  the  Hebrew  had  a  very 
limited  notion  of  the  size  of  the  universe.  I  would 
ask,  Of  what  universe  ?  If  the  visible  universe  be 
meant,  the  saying  is  true ;  but  the  same  is  true  even 
of  the  modern  telescope.  What  we  mean  by  the 
universe  is,  after  all,  very  much  what  the  Jew  meant 
— a  vast,  unseen  something  of  which  we  only  behold 
the  edges.  The  modern  calls  the  unseen  thing 
"  Nature,"  the  Jew  called  it  "  God."  But  both  are 
alike  agreed  that,  in  the  presence  of  its  vast  and  in- 
comprehensible expanse,  the  universe  comprised  by 
the  human  eye  is  indeed  infinitely  small.  Therefore 
it  is  that  in  the  Hebrew  poetry  the  visible  has  only 
a  secondary  place.  The  Hebrew  w^orships  tlie  unseen 
side  of  nature,  and  the  unseen  side  of  nature  to  him 
is  God.  Tlie  seeming  limitation  of  his  view  is  itself 
a  proof  of  his  large  imagining ;  his  poetry  has  been 
inspired  by  his  sense  of  the  internal 

I  come  now  to  the  fourth  department  in  which  the 
message  of  Judea  is  illustrated— its  morality.  What 
is  the  difference  between  the  morality  of  Egypt  and 
the  morality  of  Judea  ?     I  would   not  say  that  tlie 


The  Message  of  Judea.  323 

latter  is  higher  than  the  former  ;  I  tliink  that  in  form 
they  are  very  much  alike.  But  the  difference  lies  here. 
The  morality  of  Egypt  is  stimulated  by  the  rewards 
and  punishments  of  a  life  beyond  the  grave  ;  the  mor- 
ality of  Judea  has  no  motive  beyond  the  day  and  hour. 
And  to  say  this  is  to  say  a  great  deal  more.  It  is  to 
say  that,  for  the  large  amount  of  his  moral  actions, 
the  Jew  had  no  motive  even  in  the  day  and  hour.  It 
is  true  that  in  the  state  of  Israel,  as  in  other  states, 
there  were  jDenalties  attached  to  the  commission  of 
crime.  But  crime  is  a  very  small  part  of  sin.  The 
root  of  moral  evil  is  in  the  heart,  and  the  heart  can 
have  no  magistrate  over  it;  to  itself  it  stands  or  falls. 
If  the  future  be  not  seen,  the  visible  present  has  little 
power.  The  outward  law  may  say,  "  Thou  shalt  not 
kill,"  "  thou  shalt  not  steal,"  "  thou  shalt  not  bear 
false  witness  ";  but  what  outward  law  can  say,  "  Thou 
shalt  be  holy,"  "  thou  shalt  be  just,"  "  thou  shalt  be 
good"?  Who  can  penetrate  into  the  secret  places  of 
a  man's  soul  and  read  his  silent  moments  ?  And  if, 
in  spite  of  this  absence  of  outward  law,  there  were 
men  in  Israel  who  vjcre  holy  and  just  and  good,  if, 
notwithstanding  the  silence  from  without,  there  were 
those  that  could  walk  through  the  mire  and  keep 
their  garments  unspotted,  it  furnishes  an  indisput- 
able proof  that  the  force  which  impelled  them  was 
the  power  of  the  internal. 

To   my   mind,   indeed,    the   spectacle   of    Jewish 
moralitv  is  the  cjrandest  thiuGj  in  the  world.     AV^e 


324  Messajcs  of  the  Old  I^dir/ionR 

see  a  nation  living  in  order  to  he  a  nation  — in- 
fluenced in  its  deepest  life  by  no  other  motive  than 
the  love  of  country  and  the  transmission  of  a  pure 
name.  It  is  highly  significant  of  its  character,  that 
among  the  statutes  of  its  moral  life  there  is  said  to 
be  only  one  "  commandment  with  promise,"  only  one 
precept  to  which  there  is  attached  an  outward  re- 
ward,— "Honour  thy  father  and  thy  mother,  that 
thy  days  may  be  long  in  the  land  which  the  Lord 
thy  God  giveth  thee."  Is  even  this  a  command  with 
individual  promise  ?  Ko.  It  is  not  the  man  but 
the  nation  that  is  addressed  as  tltoiL  The  length 
of  days  to  which  the  Israelite  looks  forward  is  a 
duration  not  for  himself,  but  for  his  kingdom — a 
duration  in  which  his  family  shall  be  perpetuated 
from  Hixe  to  a^e,  and  his  institutions  extended  from 
shore  to  shore.  Such  a  motive  as  this  had  nothing 
of  self  in  it ;  it  had  patriotism,  it  had  family  affec- 
tion, but  it  had  no  self.  The  man  who  had  accepted 
it  had  relinquished  the  thought  of  his  own  being, 
had  ceased  to  view  himself  as  anything  more  than 
the  member  of  another  life.  He  had  entered  into 
one  of  the  sublimest  self-surrenders,  into  one  of  the 
completest  sacrifices  conceivable  by  human  nature 
or  expressible  in  human  history — a  sacrifice  of  which 
Christianity  itself  is  the  climax,  and  of  which  Chris- 
tian aspiration  is  the  mirror.  The  most  spiritual 
and  the  most  sacrificial  of  all  systems  has  justly 
found  its  root  in   the   life  of  a  nation   where   the 


The  Message  of  Judea.  325 

part  has  been  impelled  to  surrender  itself  to  the 
whole. 

And  what  is  the  power  by  which  this  surrender 
has  been  made  ?  It  is  the  power  of  morality  itself, 
without  extraneous  aid.  It  is  this  which  constitutes 
the  distinctive  feature  of  the  Jewish  ethics.  The 
son  of  Israel  neither  looked  forward  nor  looked 
backward ;  he  looked  in.  The  Parsee  had  his  hope 
of  a  consummated  glory ;  the  Buddhist  had  his  Mr- 
vana  of  coming  rest ;  but  the  Jew  was  influenced  by 
the  hope  neither  of  immortality  nor  of  forgetfulness. 
He  was  impelled  by  the  strength  of  an  inward  pres- 
ent. The  voice  of  conscience  had  to  him  no  voice 
to  compete  with  it ;  it  ruled  without  a  rival  and 
wdthout  a  second.  It  issued  its  absolute  mandates, 
•''  thou  shalt "  ;  "  thou  shalt  not "  ;  from  its  law  there 
could  be  no  swerving,  and  from  its  verdict  there 
could  be  no  aj^peal.  In  that  attitude  Judea  stands 
unique  and  alone,  a  spectacle  to  all  ages  and  an 
example  to  all  times.  She  is  the  one  witness  in 
the  world  to  the  inherent  majesty  of  moral  law. 
She  tells  the  human  race  that,  beneath  tlie  thunder 
and  the  earthquake  and  the  fire,  there  is  a  still  small 
voice  which  is  more  potent  than  all,  a  voice  that  can 
neither  strive  nor  cry,  but  is  mighty  in  its  calm,  clear 
decidedness.  The  voice  is  still  speaking  in  the  wil- 
derness. Driven  from  her  home,  stripped  of  her 
glory,  denuded  of  her  kingdom,  spoiled  of  her 
priestly    robes,    deprived   of   her   place    among   the 


326  Messages  of  the  Old  Fieligions. 

nations,  Jiidea  still  lives  by  the  echoes  of  her  voice, 
still  exercises  authority  by  the  mandate  of  that 
inner  conscience  which,  amid  the  dearth  of  stars 
and  systems,  says  from  within  the  veil,  "  Let  there 
be  light." 


Christianity  and  the  Messages  of  the  Past.     327 


CHAPTEE   XYI. 

CONCLUSION:    CHKTSTIANITY  AND   THE   MESSAGES 
OF   THE   PAST. 

I  HAVE  not  given  a  separate  chapter  to  the  message 
of  Cliristianity,  because  by  the  title  of  this  book  I 
limited  myself  to  the  religions  older  than  it.  All 
the  phases  of  faith  I  have  taken  up  have  their  origin 
in  a  much  remoter  past,  with  the  exception  perhaps 
of  the  Teuton ;  but  even  the  Teuton  has  long  since 
passed  away,  and  Christianity  is  still  green.  I  have 
therefore  excluded  from  formal  treatment  the  bit  of 
ground  on  which  I  stand,  and  have  made  it  rather 
the  pivot  of  observation  than  itself  a  thing  to  be 
observed.  Now,  however,  that  we  have  completed 
our  survey,  it  is  not  inexpedient  to  ask  what  is  the 
Christian  messacje  as  distinguished  from  these  other 
messages.  That  is  a  point  on  which  we  are  not  left 
in  doubt.  In  all  other  cases  we  have  to  search  the 
records  for  their  purpose;  but  here  the  purpose  is 
revealed  by  the  religion  itself.  Christianity  declares 
that  its  mission  to  the  world  is  one  of  reconciliation. 


328  Messages  of  the  Old  Iklvjions. 

No  religion  lias  ever  before  claimed  to  be  the  bearer 
of  such  a  message.  Neither  Brahman,  nor  Buddhist, 
nor  Parsee,  nor  Jew,  nor  Greek,  ever  aspired  to  such 
a  destiny.  The  nearest  approach  to  the  aspiration 
came  from  the  Roman,  who  aimed,  as  we  have  seen, 
at  the  incorporation  of  all  things  within  his^  own 
state.  But  incorporation  is  not  reconciliation.  The 
problem  of  the  Eoman  could  be  solved  by  geography; 
it  placed  heterogeneous  things  side  by  side,  and  left 
them  heterogeneous  still.  But  the  religion  of  Christ 
is  not  anxious  to  put  things  locally  together,  nor 
even  to  make  them  similar  in  appearance.  It  seeks 
to  reconcile  them  in  their  differences,  —  to  make 
Them,  in  the  very  midst  of  their  diversity,  work  out 
one  common  end.  It  is  not  eager  for  uniformity, 
not  solicitous  for  the  recognition  of  one  mode  of 
government,  not  desirous  that  all  sliould  think  on 
the  same  plane ;  it  desires  that  the  air  may  run 
through  the  variations,  that  the  diversity  of  gifts  may 
enfold  a  unity  of  the  spirit. 

Is  it  possible  tliat  the  religions  of  the  past  may 
themselves  be  included  in  this  message  of  recon- 
ciliation ?  Is  it  conceivable  that  Christianity  has 
furnished  a  ground  for  peace  not  only  within  but 
without  its  own  fold?  Paul  says  that  in  Christ 
"  all  thincjs  stand  tooether " ;  and  it  is  a  most  re- 
markable  statement.  It  seems  to  suggest  that  the 
angles  of  opposing  faiths  are  rubbed  off  when  they 
stand  in  the  Cliristian  tem!)le,  and  that  ideas  once 


Christianity  and  the  Messages  of  the  Past.     329 

mutually  conflicting  can  there  rest  side  by  side.  Do 
not  misunderstand  me.  I  do  not  for  a  moment 
imagine  that  the  first  Christians  said  to  themselves, 
'•'  AYe  shall  found  a  religion  which  shall  embrace  the 
faiths  of  the  world."  I  do  not  suppose  that  any  one 
of  these  disciples  had  ever  heard  of  Brahmanism,  or 
Buddhism,  or  Parsism.  But  tliis  does  not  even  touch 
the  question.  These  religions  are  representative  of 
certain  ideas  which  belong  to  human  nature.  If  a 
religion  appears  which  professes  to  be  a  universal 
faith,  it  must  show  its  universality  by  uniting  these 
ideas.  Tt  must  be  a  ladder  reaching  from  earth  unto 
heaven,  each  of  whose  ascending  steps  shall  find  a 
place  for. one  of  the  systems  of  the  past,  ^stead  of^ 
being  manifested  to  reveal  the  falsity  of  former  views, 
it  must,  for  the  first  time,  vindicate  the  truth  of  all, 
— must  discover  a  point  in  which  beliefs  hitherto 
deemed  at  variance  may  lie  down  together  in  unity, 
and  receive  from  the  heart  of  man  a  common  justi- 
fication. Let  us  see  whether  the  religion  of  Christ 
will  furnish  such  a  meeting-place  for  the  messages 
of  the  nations. 

In  the  order  of  nature  the  starting-point  is  the  land 
of  Egypt.  The  message  of  Egypt,  it  will  be  remem- 
bered, was  tjie  mystery  of  the  boundary -line — the 
reverence  for  the  spot  where  one  life  passes  into 
another.  Is  there  anything  in  the  Christian  doctrine 
which  corresponds  to  this  thought  ?  Tliere  is.  What 
do  we  mean   by  the  word  "  aspiration "  ?     Neither 


330  Messages  of  the  Old  Beligions. 

more  nor  less  than  the  Egyptian  meant.  Aspiration 
is  simply  the  effort  of  one  life  to  pass  over  into 
another,  to  be  something  other  than  itself.  Christian 
aspiration  is  just  the  soul  looking  over  the  boundary- 
line, — contemplating  a  life  beyond  the  limits  of  its 
own  pe'rsonality,  and  longing  to  be  like  it.  ^lan  sees 
in  the  glass  a  figure  besides  himself,  and  feels  himself 
passing  toward  that  figure.  It  has  more  attraction 
for  him  than  the  form  which  he  actually  wears,  more 
control  over  his  movements,  more  influence  over  his 
mind.  '•'  I  live,  yet  not  I,"  are  the  words  in  which 
Paul  expresses  the  sense  of  Christian  aspiration.  It 
is  the  riddle  of  the  Sphinx  in  the  sphere  of  the  gospel. 
Two  lives  shoot  out  from  one  stem — the  one  popu- 
larly called  the  real,  the  other  the  ideal.  One  is 
animal,  the  other  human ;  one  natural,  the  other 
spiritual ;  one  at  the  beginning,  the  other  at  the  end. 
AVhile  the  man  yet  dwells  in  the  one,  he  can  look  out 
at  the  window  and  gaze  at  the  other.  He  has  the 
power  to  pass  beyond  his  boundary,  to  open  the  case- 
ment that  encloses  him,  and  rejoice  in  the  anticipation 
of  a  life  that  is  not  yet  come.  There  is  a  place  for 
ancient  Egypt  in  the  Pantheon  of  modern  Christianity. 
But  let  us  go  a  step  further.  This  desire  after 
another  life  could  not  have  existed  unless  by  nature 
that  life  had  been  already  ours.  Xo  man  can  aspire 
to  anything  that  has  not  at  some  time  been  his.  His 
longing  may  be  only  the  result  of  ancestral  descent; 
but  ancestral  descent  is  itself  a  form  of  possession. 


Christianity  and  tlie  Messages  of  the  Past.     331 

"And  so,  on  the  steps  of  the  Christian  ladder,  we  pass 
from  Egypt  into  India,  from  the  vision  of  the  Sphinx 
to  the  creed  of  the  Brahman.  Tlie  message  of  Brah- 
manism,  as  we  found,  was  the  soul's  life  in  God,  the 
proclamation  of  the  truth  that  the  highest  reality  of 
things  lay  above  the  forms  that  are  seen  and  tem- 
poral. Now,  this  is  precisely  the  doctrine  of  Chris- 
tianity. It  proclaims  that  aspiration  is  itself  God  in 
the  soul.  Why  is  it  that  in  the  system  of  Christ 
such  peculiar  value  is  attached  to  the  act  of  prayer  ? 
It  is  because  the  desire  of  God  is  the  jneniory  of  GM.. 
In  any  spiritual  sphere  no  man  can  seek  more  tlian  , 
he  was  born  to.  If  he  asks  for  God,  it  is  a  proof  that  / 
he  has  come  from  God;  his  want  is  itself  his  birth- 
right, his  weakness  is  his  strength.  It  is  here  that\ 
the  gospel  of  Christ  meets  with  the  creed  of  the 
Brahman.  It  declares  that  in  his  very  destitution,  I 
by  reason  of  the  very  sense  of  his  destitution,  man  isl 
proved  to  be  divine,  on  a  level  with  that  for  whichf 
he  prays ;  so  that  the  Founder  of  Christianity  Him; 
self  has  not  scrupled  to  say,  "  Whatsoever  things  ya 
have  need  of,  believe  that  ye  receive  them,  and  ye 
have  received  them."  The  Christian  has  excelled  the! 
Brahman  in  the  boldness  of  his  claims.  He  has 
declared  that  his  life  is  already  hid  with  God,  thati 
he  is  even  now  risen  from  the  grave,  that  he  haa 
passed  from  death  unto  life,  that  he  is  a  citizen  or 
the  upper  world,  that  he  is  seated  at  God's  right 
hand  in  the  heavenly  places,  that  the  divine  Life  is 


332  Messages  of  the  Old  Relirjions. 

at  this  moment  dwelling  within  him.  And  so  vivid 
is  this  consciousness,  that  to  him,  as  to  the  Brahman, 
there  are  times  in  which  every  other  life  is  felt  to  be 
a  shadow,  in  which  this  world  appears  to  be  but  a 
vain  show,  but  a  blaze  of  stage-scenery,  with  no  pre- 
sent reality  and  not  even  a  lengthened  semblance  of 
reality.  What  is  it  that  prevents  him  from  going 
straight  to  the  Braliman's  conclusion,  and  regarding 
this  earthly  state  as  an  idle  dream  ? 

It  is  because  Christianity  here  passes  from  Brah- 
manism  into  Parsism.  You  remember  the  message 
of  Parsism.  It  told  the  world  that  the  shadows 
which  dim  the  vision  of  eternity  are  no  dreams,  that 
they  are  the  result  of  an  intense  reality — something 
which  has  gone  wrong  in  the  mechanism  of  the  moral 
universe.  And  here  Christianity  takes  up  the  Par- 
see's  story.  It  tells  me  that  I  dare  not  regard  this 
scene  of  time  as  a  series  of  delusions,  dare  not  per- 
suade myself  that  I  have  entered  into  rest.  I  have 
not  entered  into  rest.  However  much  I  wish  it, 
however  strongly  I  aspire  after  it,  there  is  something 
which  holds  me  back  and  impedes  the  movement  of 
my  wing.  I  call  it  sin,  but  it  matters  not  much  what 
we  call  it;  it  is  there,  and  it  is  no  dream.  In  this 
the  ancient  Parsee^  and  the  Christian  are  at  one. 
They  both  emphasise  the  tremendous  reality  of  the 

^  I  use  the  expression  ^''ancient  Parsee "  adviscdl}' ;  modern 
Parsism  has  entirely  deserted  the  di.-itinctivc  tenet  of  the  old  reli- 
gion— its  recognition  of  two  Powers. 


ChristioMity  and  the  Messages  of  the  Fast.     333 

hinclmDce  to  the  moral  life  of  man.  They  both  rec- 
Qcrnise  the  fact  that  there  is  a  twofold  nature  in  the 
human  soul — a  law  in  the  members  warring  against 
the  law  of  the  mind,  an  antagonism  of  the  spirit  to 
the  flesh,  and  of  the  flesh  to  the  spirit.  They  both, 
in  accents  equally  piercing,  reveal  the  same  great 
burden  and  utter  the  same  great  cry,  "  Oh  wretched 
man  that  I  am  !  who  shall  deliver  me  from  this  body 
of  death  ? " 

But  with  the  utterance  of  that  cry  Parsism  and 
Christianity  part  company.  With  neither  is  the  cry 
one  of  despair ;  yet  their  ground  of  hope  is  different. 
Parsism  looks  forward ;  its  hope  is  for  a  golden 
future.  But  Christianity's  first  gl^ince  is  turned 
backward.  The  darkest  cloud  it  sees  is  not  in 
the  future  but  in  the  past.  It  feels  that,  before 
it  can  advance  into  anything  golden,  it  must  re- 
trace its  steps  to  undo  something  in  the  bygone 
years.  It  is  here  tliat,  as  I  have  pointed  out  in 
an  earlier  chapter  of  this  book,  the  religion  of 
Christ  finds  a  place  for  another  and  a  very  different 
religion  —  the  faith  of  the  Chinese  empire.  We 
have  seen  how  that  empire,  spite  of  its  materialism, 
and  notwithstanding  its  utilitarianism,  lias  been 
unable  to  rest  in  the  hour.  We  have  seen  how  it 
has  been  unable  even  to  rest  in  the  prospect  of  a 
coming  hour.  It  has  sought  redemption  not  so 
much  by  the  advent  of  something  new  as  by  the 
clearing  away  of    something  old.      It  aims  to  get 


334  Messages  of  the  Old  Religions. 

back  to  the  morning  that  is  past,  not  forward  to 
tlie  morning  that  is  coming.  Corruptions  have 
gathered  during  the  day;  abuses  have  accumulated 
in  the  circling  of  the  suns.  No  future  morninfj 
will  avail  to  wipe  these  out ;  each  brighter  sun 
will  make  them  only  more  evident.  The  shadow 
itself  must  be  rolled  backward  on  the  dial;  the 
past  must  be  unspoken,  the  word  must  be  unsaid. 
Here,  as  I  have  indicated,  is  the  place  in  tlie 
Christian  Pantheon  in  which  the  Chinese  empire 
can  stand.  She  is  unlike  everything  else  in  Asia; 
but  she  is  justified  by  Christ.  Her  place  in  history 
is  vindicated  by  the  creed  of  the  Son  of  man.  She 
loses  her  absurdity,  her  grotesqueness,  her  peculiar- 
ity, when  she  stands  on  the  steps  of  the  only  ladder 
which  jjrofesses  to  find  a  foothold  for  all  sorts 
and  conditions  of  men.  The  idea  which  she  has 
ventilated  has  received  a  part  to  play  in  Christ's 
message  of  reconciliation. 

And  the  next  place  is  one  for  Buddhism.  After 
redemption  from  the  past  comes  surrender  to  human 
brotherhood.  Christ,  in  the  system  of  St  Paul, 
is  not  an  individual ;  he  is  the  Head  of  a  body — 
the  body  of  humanity.  To  surrender  myself  to 
Christ,  therefore,  is  to  do  exactly  what  the  Buddhist 
does — to  yield  myself  to  the  service  of  man.  The 
difference  is  one  not  of  act  but  of  spirit.  It  mainly 
lies  in  the  fact  that  the  Buddhist  begins  his  sacri- 
fice wliile  the   jmst  is   still   pressing   on    liim  ;  the 


Christianity  and  the  Messages  of  the  Fast.     335 

Christian  waits  till  the  burden  has  been  removed. 
The  effect  of  this  is  the  difference  between  a 
sacrifice  of  despair  and  a  sacrifice  of  hope.  Bud- 
dhism, as  it  appears  in  Christianity,  is  not  a  differ- 
ent star,  but  the  old  star  in  a  new  position.  It 
shines  with  the  same  brightness,  but  it  shines 
from  an  opposite  locality.  It  was  once  lit  by 
grief ;  it  is  now  illuminated  by  joy.  It  was  once 
fired  by  despondency  ;  it  is  now  inspired  by  hope. 
It  is  no  longer  prompted  by  the  belief  that  life 
is  not  worth  living,  and  that  the  essence  of  exis- 
tence is  pain.  It  arises  rather  from  the  conscious- 
ness that  life  has  revealed  undreamt-of  possibilities 
of  expansion,  and  from  a  conviction  that  the  most 
seemingly  hopeless  soul  may  yet  be  partaker  of 
unclouded  joy.  The  Buddhism  of  Christianity  is 
impelled  to  the  Cross  by  the  crown. 

And,  the  result  of  this  surrender  is  the  reappear- 
ance on  the  Christian  ladder  of  that  faith  which  it 
superseded — Judaism.  "  Love  is  the  fulfilling  of  the 
law,"  are  the  words  in  which  Christianity  itself  pro- 
claims the  possibility  that,  in  a  new  order  of  things, 
Moses  may  live  again.  Judaism  failed  to  keep  a 
perfect  morality,  because  the  keeping  of  a  perfect 
morality  was  its  aim;  the  obstruction  of  self-con- 
sciousness was  created  by  the  thought  of  self- 
righteousness.  But  the  religion  of  Christ  declares 
that,  if  love  came  first,  there  would  be  no  fear  of 
failure.     It  declares  that,  if  a  man,  instead  of  seek- 


336  Messages  of  the  Old  Religions. 

ing  his  own  perfection,  could  begin  by  fixing  his 
affections  on  a  perfect  ideal,  he  would  be  borne  into 
law  through  love.  The  message  of  Judaism  was  the 
power  of  the  internal — the  proclamation  that  all 
strength  came  from  within.  But  Judaism  herself 
never  got  far  enough  in  to  have  much  power.  It 
did  not  reach  the  centre — the  heart.  Christianity 
found  the  mine  for  which  Judaism  was  seeking.  It 
touched  the  most  subterranean  spring  in  human 
nature,  and  unsealed  the  deepest  well  from  which 
the  waters  of  the  life  can  flow — the  impulse  of  the 
affections.  It  made  the  yoke  of  morality  easy  and 
its  burden  light.  It  enabled  men  to  leap  at  a  bound 
over  paths  which  hitherto  had  taxed  their  utmost 
energy.  It  outran  the  commandments  contained  in 
ordinances ;  it  went  beyond  the  letter ;  it  did  more 
than  was  expected  of  it ;  it  left  Moses  in  the  rear. 
The  law  of  Christ  goes  further  than  the  law  of  Sinai, 
and  secures  more  success  in  its  observance.  Sinai 
forbids  to  hurt ;  but  Calvary  commands  to  heal. 
!  Sinai  forbids  to  impose  a  yoke ;  Calvary  commands 
'to  bear  a  burden.  Sinai  forbids  to  pass  the  beggar 
on  the  highway ;  Calvary  commands  to  seek  as  well 
\as  save.  The  law  of  Moses  has  received  in  Christ 
I  more  than  it  lost  in  Judaism ;  it  has  found  in  Him 
its  "  times  for  the  restitution  of  all  things." 

And,  in  proportion  as  the  moral  law  increases  in 
the  power  of  its  observance,  will  a  place  be  found  in 
the  Christian  rantheon  for  the  ideas  of  Greece  and 


CJiristianity  and  the  Messages  of  the  Past.     337 

Eome.  We  defined  the  position  of  Greece  to  be  the 
reverence  for  the  present  as  distinguished  from  either 
the  past  or  the  future.  Such  a  state  of  things  can- 
not exist  now ;  but  religion  is  at  one  with  science  in 
hoping  for  a  time  when  it  shall  exist.  Christianity 
and  modern  science  profess  to  differ  in  many  things, 
but  they  are  agreed  in  the  anticipation  of  a  golden 
age  for  man,  an  age  in  wliich  the  present  order  of 
things  shall  be  perfected  and  glorified.  To  this  time 
of  completed  evolution  the  message  of  Greece  may 
look  forward  for  its  fulfilment.  Alike  from  the 
scientific  and  from  the  Christian  stand -point,  we 
may  contemplate  the  coming  of  a  day  when  the 
earth  itself  shall  be  worthy  of  reverence,  when  the 
passing  hour  shall  be  worth  preserving,  and  the 
present  shall  be  valued  for  itself  alone.  What  does 
Paul  mean  when  he  says,  "  The  creation  itself  shall 
be  delivered  from  the  bondage  of  corruption  into  the 
glorious  liberty  of  the  sons  of  God "  ?  Is  it  not 
simply  a  prediction  that  the  time  is  coming  in  which 
the  aspirations  of  Greece  shall  be  fulfilled,  when 
poetry  shall  speak  the  language  of  prose,  and  beauty 
shall  become  itself  a  teacher  of  truth  ?  The  Roman 
too  has  his  place  in  this  vision  of  the  glorious  liberty 
of  the  sons  of  God.  I  have  shown,  in  a  previous 
chapter,  how  the  Eoman  ideal  of  a  son  of  God  was 
itself  but  a  premature  and  abortive  effort  to  realise 
a  Christian  conception.  It  was  the  search  for  a 
kingdom  which  should  embrace  under  its  sway  all 

Y 


338  Messages  of  the  Old  Religions. 

other  kingdoms,  which,  without  destroying  diversities 
of  nature,  should  keep  the  unity  of  law.  We  have 
seen  how  the  ideal  of  Eome  was  above  her  power. 
Her  power  was  only  physical,  and  therefore  it  could 
not  rule  without  crushing.  But,  as  I  have  already 
pointed  out,  Christianity  offers  to  the  old  Eoman 
religion  a  realisation  of  its  dream..  It  tells  of  a 
dominion  which  she  extends  from  sea  to  sea  without 
destroying  the  sea — without  obliterating  the  boun- 
daries that  now  divide,  or  annihilating  the  diversi- 
ties that  now  distinguish.  It  shows  us  this  king- 
dom already  existing  in  miniature,  already  growing 
in  strength,  already  prophetic  of  its  future  fulness ; 
and,  by  the  very  presentation  of  the  vision,  it  con- 
nects the  modern  with  the  ancient  world,  and  joins 
the  culture  of  the  later  age  with  the  civilisation  of 
an  age  that  has  passed  aw^ay. 

Nor  has  the  message  of  tlie  Teuton  been  omitted 
in  this  accumulation  of  thought  which  has  gathered 
round  the  religion  of  the  Cross.  It  will  be  remem- 
bered that  w^e  defined  tliis  message  to  be  the  associa- 
tion of  development  with  the  idea  of  divinity.  I 
indicated  that  the  novelty  lay  in  the  association. 
Progress  was  not  a  new  idea  as  applied  to  the  affairs 
of  men.  But  in  tlie  mythology  of  the  Teuton  the 
scene  of  the  progressive  drama  is  laid  not  in  earth 
but  heaven,  and  the  growth  througli  the  successive 
stages  is  a  growth  among  the  gods.  Here  is  a  thought 
sufficiently  bold  to  challenge  our  attention,  and  speci- 


Christianity  and  the  Messages  of  the  Past.     339 

ally  striking  among  a  people  whose  earliest  reverence 
was  for  the  idea  of  complete  and  instantaneous  power. 
To  say  that  tlie  Divine  Life  can  itself  partake  in  the 
changes  of  the  universe,  to  admit  that  the  Absolute 
Spirit  can  be  affected  by  the  transmutations  of  exis- 
tence, is  a  less  natural  thouglit  than  in  modern  times 
it  seems,  Brahmanism  appears  to  hold  it ;  but  it  is 
only  in  appearance.  The  universe  of  the  Brahmin  is 
an  illusion ;  there  is  no  real  movement  either  of  the 
human  or  of  the  divine,  and  nothing  reigns  but  ever- 
lasting stillness.  But  with  the  Teuton  it  is  all  the 
reverse :  the  world  is  a  reality ;  the  external  world  is 
a  special  reality.  The  acts  of  the  gods  are  no  parts 
of  a  sleeping  consciousness ;  the  changes  in  the  life  of 
the  gods  are  no  interludes  of  a  dream.  The  drama 
in  heaven  is  a  real  drama ;  the  progress  is  a  genuine 
progress.  The  growth  of  the  Divine  Life  is  distinc- 
tively the  message  of  the  Teuton. 

But,  unique  as  it  is  among  the  religions  of  the 
world,  it  is  vindicated  in  that  faith  which  professes 
to  find  a  place  for  all.  In  Christianity,  as  in  the 
mythology  of  the  Teuton,  we  meet  the  same  other- 
wise anomalous  doctrine  that  the  Divine  Life  can 
grow.  Here  the  kingdom  of  heaven  is  compared  not 
to  something  which  is  fashioned  and  finished  from 
the  beginning,  but  to  a  seed  which  is  cast  into  the 
ground,  which  is  at  first  the  least  of  all  seeds,  which 
is  long  hid  from  the  view  of  the  beholder,  which  lies 
for  days  and  nights  unnoticed,  and  wliich,  at  last, 


340  Mcssarjes  of  the  Old  Bcligions. 

springs  up,  he  cannot  tell  how.  Paul  declares  in  the 
boldest  language  that  there  is  a  "law  of  the  Sj)irit  of 
Life."  He  means  that  the  Spirit  of  Life  has  made 
itself  subject  to  the  progress  of  humanity,  has  flowed 
\Yith  man's  growth  and  ebbed  with  man's  arrested 
development.  He  tells  us  that  the  Christian  life — 
the  life  of  the  Eternal — is  itself  a  process  of  incarna- 
tion, by  which  the  stages  of  humanity  are  conquered 
one  by  one,  a  process  by  which  the  infant  becomes  a 
child,  the  child  a  youth,  and  the  youth  a  full-grown 
man.  AVe  see  the  life  born  amid  trouble,  hid  in 
obscurity,  reared  in  subjection,  tried  by  temptation, 
matured  by  suffering,  ripened  by  crucifixion,  and  only 
reaching  its  perfect  beauty  at  the  end  of  the  days. 
We  see  hrst  the  blade,  then  the  ear,  afterward  the 
full  corn  in  the  ear.  Yet  we  are  taught  to  think  of 
the  process  as  divine  from  the  very  beginning — divine 
in  its  germ,  divine  in  its  struggle,  divine  in  its  con- 
summation. The  message  of  the  Teuton  has  been  re- 
delivered by  the  Spirit  of  Christ ;  it  has  received  its 
justification  from  the  religion  of  humanity. 

I  have  thus  endeavoured  to  show  that  the  appear- 
ance of  Christianity  has  been  accompanied  by  a 
resurrection  from  the  dead.  It  is  popularly  said  to 
have  conquered  the  faiths  of  the  past.  And  so  it 
has ;  but  in  a  very  peculiar  way.  It  has  conquered 
as  the  Eoman  empire  wdshed  to  conquer — not  by^ 
submergence,  but  by  incorporation.  It  would  not 
be  true  to  say  that  it  has  destroyed  them ;  it  would 


Clirisiianity  and  the  Mcssckjcs  of  the  Fast,     341 

be  more  correct  to  affirm  that  it  lias  kept  tliem  alive. 
They  had  all  outgrown  their  youth,  all  survived 
their  time,  all  failed  to  bring  rest  to  the  soul.  The 
form  remained  ;  the  sensuous  life  remained ;  but  the 
spirit  had  passed  away.;  If  Christianity  had  not 
appeared,  paradoxical  as  it  may  seem,  I  think  these 
religions  would  have  become  supremely  uninterest- 
ing; Christianity  has  made  them  vivid  by  making 
them  living.  In  its  many-sidedness  it  has  a  side 
for  each  of  these.  It  has  let  in  its  light  upon  them ; 
it  has  given  its  breath  to  them ;  it  has  found  a  place 
for  them  in  its  own  system.  It  has  given  them  a 
logical  order  which  has  dispelled  the  contradictions 
of  the  natural  order.  Indian  and  Greek,  Eoman 
and  Teuton,  Buddhist  and  Parsee,  Egyptian  and 
Chinaman,  can  meet  here  hand  in  hand ;  because  in 
the  comprehensive  temple  of  Christian  truth  there  is 
not  only  a  niche  which  each  may  fill,  but  a  niche 
which,  at  some  stage  of  its  development,  must  be 
filled  by  one  and  all. 

Therefore  it  is  that  the  religion  of  Christ  ou^ht 
to  have  peculiar  interest  in  the  faiths  of  the  past. 
They  are  not,  to  her,  dead  faiths ;  they  are  not  even 
modernised.  They  are  preserved  inviolable  as  parts 
of  herself — more  inviolable  than  they  would  have 
been  if  she  had  never  come.  Christianity  has 
claimed  to  be  "the  manifold  wisdom  of  God."  In 
this  ascription  she  has  been  candid  to  the  past. 
She  has  not  denied  its  wisdom ;  she  has  only  aspired 


342  Messages  of  the  Old  Puiigions. 

to  enfold  it.  She  has  not  sought  to  derogate  from 
the  doctrines  of  antiquity;  she  has  only  sought  to 
diminish  their  antagonisms.  China  may  keep  her 
materialism,  and  India  may  retain  her  mysticism ; 
Eome  may  grasp  her  strength,  and  Greece  may 
nurse  her  beauty ;  Persia  may  tell  of  the  opposition 
to  God's  power,  and  Egypt  may  sing  of  His  pre- 
eminence even  amid  the  tombs :  but  for  each  and  all 
there  is  a  seat  in  the  Christian  Pantheon,  and  a 
justification  in  the  light  of  the  manifold  wisdom  of 
God. 


THE    END. 


PRINIEU   BY    WILLIAM    LLACKWOOD   AND  SONS. 


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